Bright Lights
by Bastille Kain
Summary: Peter left New York before Mary Jane’s arrival at the end of the movie heading someplace quite and peaceful where he won’t be tempted to use his powers and draw attention to himself. The Roswell gang, after dealing - permanently - with the F.B.I.’s speci
1. Chap 1: Somewhere I Belong

Author: Kain

Title: Bright Lights

Disclaimer: I own nothing. The character's of Buffy, Angel, and any other show that are unfortunate enough to be used here belong to other people.

Spoilers: Anything and everything is fair game as far as I'm concerned. After the end of Buffy, Angel, and Roswell, between season three and four of Smallville, and a slight alteration to the end of Spider-Man 2.

Summary: Peter left New York before Mary Jane's arrival at the end of the movie heading someplace quite and peaceful where he won't be tempted to use his powers and draw attention to himself. The Roswell gang, after dealing - permanently - with the F.B.I.'s special unit come to Smallville to investigate the alien script that has been cropping up all over the town. Oh yeah, Lex has a mildly psychotic little sister named Faith, that he just aimed at Daddy dearest.

Pairings: Unknown. Haven't thought that far ahead.

Rating: PG-13. Language, violence... blah, blah, blah.

Feed Back: Is always appreciated. Just try to keep it constructive.

Archive: If you like it that much, sure. Just Be sure to let me know where it's going, and give me the credit, good or bad, for my work.

Chapter One: Somewhere I Belong

Her heart pounded in her chest as she raced up the creaking stairs of the run down tenement house. They groaned alarmingly under her slight weight, but managed to hold her. How she didn't know, nor did she give the fact an abundance of thought.

Fifteen minutes ago she had almost made the biggest mistake of her life. At least it felt like it would have been the biggest mistake of her life. If she had gone through with wedding she just knew the "what ifs" would have haunted her the rest of her days.

Standing in the Cathedral s dressing chamber, waiting for the wedding march to play, it had all become so clear. Like a light had been flipped on, or a bell had suddenly tolled marking the hour.

Quite simply it was an epiphany.

And she just knew what was right for her.

It wasn't a wedding. It wasn't a marriage to a man she more then liked. but didn't love.

She just knew it.

So she ran. She took a cab. She did what ever was necessary to get here. She hadn't even bothered to change out the white wedding dress she was wearing.

And here she was. Standing in front of the door that opened the apartment of the man she loved. Has loved for as long as she can remember.

Chest heaving.

Lungs burning, laboring for breath.

Hand poised to knock on the frail looking piece of wood standing before her.

"If you're looking for Parker," a bitter, nasal voice with a deep middle European accent said, cutting through the air. "He's already gone."

Mary Jane blinked rapidly as she whirled around to face the voice that had spoken. "What?" She blinked again, dismay written on her face, confusion in her voice. "What did you say?"

The landlord had already began moving away. He stopped at her question, twisting his stooped back around to look at her. "Parker," he started as the rest of his body followed his head around. "Shipped out of here..." he paused for a moment "...not more then half an hour gone by now. What s the matter? Something wrong with your hearing. Pretty girl like you. What d you want with Parker anyway?"

A thousand thoughts rushed through her mind between one heartbeat and the next. Though only one stuck in her head, "Peter's gone? How can Peter Be gone?"

He shrugged. "What do I look like, information?" The snap in his voice was there more form habit. "He paid his rent, then he tells me he has to get out of the city. Something about the girl he loved marrying some other fellow and needing to give her, her space. Nonsense if you ask me. Stalked is more like it, and she finally got tired of it."

Mary Jane gasped softly, giving a start, her hand going to her mouth as she stumbled back.

Peter had left because of her

The very thought made her tremble. Her heart shattering into a thousand shards at the very thought.

Her back hit the wall with a soft thud. Hot tears streamed down her cheeks as she slid down the dingy wall. Dark dirt stained the back of her white dress as she sunk to the floor.

The landlord, seemed to have finally caught a clue, said, "hey you wouldn't happen to Be that girl Parker was talking about?" His words fell upon deaf ears.

The only words Mary Jane can hear at the moment are the ones running riot in her head.

_Why?_

_Why did I wait so long?_

_Why did it take so long to realize that Peter was the only man I've ever loved? Even half an hour. Better yet, last week. Right after he saved me from Dr Otto Octavian... Dr Octopus._

_Why did I wait so very, very long._

The landlord gazed at the crying girl with hard uncaring eyes for a moment. A sour breath escaped her lips as his dark eyes softened with something akin to sympathy. Without really thinking about it, he climbed the old stairs unconcerned with either the creaking or the groaning. Placing an gnarled hand on her shoulder he gave it a reassuring squeeze. "Hey now, why you waste good tears on a no account lout like Parker for. If he wasn't smarter enough to hold on to a girl like you, then he doesn't deserve a girl like you. He doesn't deserve the tears you shed for him."

His voice continued to drone on and on. An odd counterpoint to Mary Jane's soft mournful sobs.

Peter curled his toes in his plain white sneakers. The had pack dirt road under his feet still felt alien to him; a city boy whose closest contact to the great outdoors was Central Park. A haven for the homeless, derelicts, and dregs that hovered constantly on the periphery of society.

Everyone knew they were there, but nobody ever saw them.

Never before has Peter stood on the ground and seen so much openness. Not even when he was swinging between towering skyscrapers. No matter how much open space was below him, he was surrounded by an ever changing landscape of glass, steel, and concrete. The one time when he was at the shore and looked out over the ocean and there was nothing but that great expanse of blue stretching from horizon to horizon, reaching on and on forever. Not just outwards but up into the sky as well, everything was just blue. This was similar, but it was a sea of grass that just went on as far as the eye could see.

Checking the help wanted ad in the paper again Peter made sure he was at the right address. The wooden sign, creaking softly as it swung back and forth, was worn with age, but confirmed he was at the Kent farm.

Carelessly folding the day old paper he shoved it into the old, but well cared for, supple brown leather back pack. Picking it up Peter slung it over his left shoulder. It had been Uncle Ben s, from back when he had been a young man. He had bought it a few days before his twenty-fourth birthday, just before his discharge from the navy. Even though he hadn't used it in the years just prior to his death Uncle Ben had kept the worked leather in the best condition possible.

That was simply his way.

As he began the trek up the long driveway Peter couldn't help but miss Uncle Ben's strong, compassionate, and guiding hand. Has missed ever since he allowed it to ripped away. He could imagine all the different paths his life might have taken if he had done that one thing different. If he simply stopped that petty crook when the opportunity had first presented itself.

but he hadn't . He had made a choice to get even with a sleazy promoter and Uncle Ben paid the price. Paid with his life.

He imagined, but it didn't change anything. The world was the way it was and he had to live in it. Which included the fact that Mary Jane was now married to J. Jonah Jamison's son, Jack.

Just one more thing he had to deal with; get over and move on from.

That's why, even though he read the paper everyday - the classifieds mostly - he has yet to peruse the society pages. He felt no need to torture himself by reading about what a beautiful ceremony had taken place last week. He didn't need to read about the gala event to know it was a spectacle that would be written, talked, and gossiped about for months, if not years.

There was also the million dollar bounty Harry had on his head, on Spider-Man's head. Just because he wasn't advertising the fact didn't mean Harry wasn't putting the word out as to who the web-swinger really is. The man ran a multi-hundred million dollar company, if his fingers hadn't dipped into a few dirty pies since taking over OsCorp, Peter would be very surprised.

It was the reason why Peter was going under a false name, a name he doubted anybody would object to him using. Benjamin Reilly. Aunt May's maiden name combined with Uncle Ben s first name. Hopefully nobody would put the two together and track him down.

He supposed it didn't really matter if anyone found him or not. He was going back to New York a week or so before his classes resumed. Until then he needed to earn some cold hard cash. Which meant he was in desperate need of a job, maybe even two.

He knew it would have been easier to find a job in Metropolis, but large metropolitan areas were places he was trying to avoid right now. The temptation to use his power would too great, there would be too many people in need of his help, and he wouldn't be able to stand by, doing nothing. He would help. Then word would leak back to Harry, who had made it abundantly clear the only reason the world didn't know who Spider-Man was, was Aunt May. While Aunt May was alive his secret was safe. No matter how much Harry hated Spider-Man, and by extension Peter, he still cared far too much for Aunt May to destroy her with the news that her beloved nephew was nothing more then a cold blooded murderer.

For that, at least, Peter was extremely grateful. Not for himself, but for Aunt May. He could take whatever Harry, the world could throw at him, even a life prison sentence if it came to that. Not that he thought it would. Norman Osborne was the Green Goblin. If it came to it, Harry would find out exactly who is father had been, and his promise to an insane sociopath be damned.

He had never worked on a farm before and had no idea what the work would entail. Assuming he got the job. but Peter figured if he could swing through the city on a thin strand of webbing and fight madmen like the Green Goblin and Doc. Oc. Then he should be able the muck out stalls and chuck bails of hay.

He thought he could anyway.

"Hey there." A booming voice called out from the back of the house breaking him out of his walking musings. Lifting his head from the ground he had been watching, without seeing, Peter easily spotted the older man standing at the corner of the house. Despite the cane he was using to provide a little support, he still looked capable of accomplishing anything he set his mind to.

His dark blonde, soft brown hair was cut short, but its heavy curls gave it a wild untamed appearance. His face still possessed the features of a man still in the prime of his life. It was sun dark from spending long hours outdoors, with light gray, sometimes blues eyes - depending on the sun - but very intelligent, looking the world over. Keen, Peter would have called them. "Something I can help you with?"

Peter smiled broadly, engagingly so, as he eyed the fence. It wasn't extremely high, and even without his powers he could probably still clear. _As long as I used a hoist_. With his powers he could clear it by a dozen yards or so.

"I sure hope so!" The exuberance in his voice carried all the way to Jonathan. With a couple of quick steps, but not too quick, he reached the fence. His left hand grabbing gold of the rough post and easily vaults over the top rail. Landing with ease he continued his slow jog up the small embankment. "I saw the ad for summer help you posted in the Daily Planet..."

A sad smile touched Jonathan's eyes at the mention of the ad. A You probably should've called before coming all the way out here." Jonathan ran an appraising eye over the young man. He was definitely on the small side, at a little bit over five and a half feet tall and a hundred and sixty pounds soaking wet.

Peter lifted his shoulders in an indifferent shrug. "Probably," he agreed in a friendly voice.

"No offense, but you're a bit small for farm work." Jonathan tried to place the boys age, but had a hard time. His face was young, maybe no more then a junior or senior; seventeen at most. His eyes - clear, steel blue eyes - were older. There was pain buried not to deep in those eyes. There was also the wisdom of age. As if he had experienced more then a man twice his age.

Jonathan extended his right hand and Peter took it. "No offense taken," he responded tightening his grip on Jonathan's larger, work calloused hand.

His eyes widened slightly at the strength the young man was exerting with no real effort. "That's some grip you've got there?"

"I'm stronger then I look Mr..." Peter stopped not knowing who he was talking to. He let go of Jonathan's hand as if he just remembered he was holding it.

"Kent. Jonathan Kent." Swiveling his head as far around as it will go from left to right, he takes in as much of his land as he can before letting his eyes return to Peter. "This is my farm."

"Look, Mr. Kent... I'm not the biggest guy around, and I've never seen grass taller then the bottom of my shoes before; but I'm smart, a hard worker, a fast learner, and I'm not afraid of getting my hands dirty or doing the lowest most repugnant job you can think of." He paused taking a short breath before finishing with, "and I'm not above begging if I have to."

Jonathan can't help but smile at the boy's earnest approach. "Where are you from? Metropolis?"

"New York City." His answer was filled with a mix of emotions.

"New York," Jonathan said as his eyes widened a little hearing the answer. "You've come a long way to find a job," he added as he studied him once more. He wasn't able to decipher anything new. "What brings you all the way out to the middle of Kansas?"

He looked down at the ground. After just a few short minutes of talking to Jonathan Kent, Peter didn't want to lie to the man. There was a strength, a sturdiness to him that reminded Peter of Uncle Ben. but telling him the truth, "Hi, I'm Spider-Man, and I had to leave New York because the woman I love is married to another man, and my best friend hates my guts and wants me dead because he thinks I killed his father, who was really my arch nemesis, the Green Goblin, but he doesn't know that and I made a promise not to tell, so my life is a royal mess right now," wasn't going to go over all that well.

Maybe some vague version of the truth. "I fell in love."

"And she didn't love you back?"

Peter gave his head a little shake as he murmured, "no." Then in a stronger voice he went on saying, "she loved me back. Only I spent so much time sabotaging our relationship that she married another man..."

"So you decided to get out of town," Jonathan supplied. "You know, you can't run away from your problems."

Peter gave a small nod saying, "its not really running away. Its just going to be until the fall semester starts back up. I wanted to give her some time without me there as a distraction."

It made sense to Jonathan, in a morbid, self sacrificing way that reminded him of Clark and Lana. The secrets Clark kept from the girl of his dreams, that kept him from the woman he loved. "If you're going to working here I'm going to need to know what to call you."

As casually as possible Peter said, "Benjamin Reilly. Everyone calls me Ben," as he held out his right hand.

He took Peter's hand giving it a solid squeeze. "Welcome aboard Ben. Why don't you stow your pack in the front hall and I'll see what I can do about introducing you to everyone else."

A soft puddle of warm sunlight pooled around the Talon's entrance as the glass door swung shut behind the enigmatic Lex Luther. There were still three days to go before his father's trail and still there had been no attempts on his, or his friends' lives. Lionel Luther wasn't known as a man to take things lying down. He also wasn't a man who waited until after the fact before extracting retribution. He was very proactive when it came to making sure people got exactly what he felt they deserved.

Those facts had Lex on edge. Plus knowing that being around him put his friends in even more danger had Lex looking over his shoulder constantly.

Figuratively speaking anyway.

At this point it didn't matter if his father did manage to kill him. Arrangements had already been made and if he didn't make a very specific phone call, by a certain time each day, events would be put in motion that he didn't think God himself would be able to stop.

And no matter what Lionel Luther thought of himself, he certainly wasn't God.

He felt guilty in a way he wasn't use to. A way that made him feel dirty inside.

He simply pushed it down, someplace deep inside of himself. It was the one lesson Lionel Luther had managed to teach him. How to ignore his conscious when it served his purpose.

Lana was busy talking with two young women; either in their late teens, or early twenties. The strawberry blonde was a little taller and had a slimmer build then her raven haired companion. Her hair was cut short, but was still long enough to have a semi spiked, partially mused look to it. She possessed a world wary, cynical quality. A guardedness about her eyes that took just a little away from her overall beauty. None the less she was still a highly attractive young woman.

The brunette had a fresher, more innocent look. A naiveté. Her long, nearly pure black hair hung to her waist. Even though she was older then Lana, she seemed younger.

"Hey," Chloe greeted him buoyantly as she came up beside him completely unnoticed.

Lex smiled faintly as he turned to face the intrepid reporter. "How are you holding up Chloe?"

The tiny blonde shrugged indifferently. "One days pretty much like the one before. How about you?" She glanced towards Lana and the two women she was talking to. before Lex can answer she noted, "I see you were checking out the Talon's new owners."

Lex blinked in surprise. Unless they had somebody backing them Lex didn't think either one possessed the resources to buy the Talon outright, which would mean they had gotten financing that he didn't know about. Since all the local banks had been encouraged to keep him appraised of transactions concerning the Talon he would know if that was the case.

A rakish smirk slid over Chloe's lips as she watched Lex gazing at the two women. The young Luther always had a reputation as a lady s man, and from the look in his eyes he had already set his sights on his next target. A before you let your heart go all a flutter. Check out their ring fingers and the wedding bands."

Lex twisted his body back around to glance at Chloe with a rather blank expression dominating his features. For a brief moment he had no idea what Chloe was talking about. Then it clicked in his head and a wisp of an indulgent smile settled on his face.

By that time Chloe had already started talking again. "I figured they must be one of these new age couples. Got themselves a civil union, or maybe hopped the border with our northern neighbor and tied the knot."

"Or," Lex began forcefully, because he knew that was the only way to stop Chloe once she got on a roll. "Their husbands could be at work, on their way to pick them up. Any number of plausible explanations." He stopped as if he found something amusing. "New owners aside... I stopped in to make sure you were all right."

"Doing great," a sarcastically cheerful tilt in her voice. "Nothing like the specter of constant death hanging over your head to make you realize how much you haven t done. You seem to be holding up fairly well."

Lex shrugged, a small lifting of his right shoulder. "Let's just say when Lionel Luther is your father , you learn... quite young, that there are worse fates then death."

Chloe's eyes fill with the sadness and pity she knows Lex won't allow himself to feel, especially for himself. She continually forgets just how much turmoil the young man standing in front of her has survived and overcome during his life. That despite all the pressure, and Lionel Luther's influence, Lex has still become his own; strong willed, resourceful - and above all else - decent man.

"Hey guys," Lana greeted cutting into Chloe s inner musings. Her voice practically bubbled over with exuberance. "I'd like to introduce you to the Talon's new owners; Maria Guerin and Elizabeth Parker Evens..." she continued introducing the blonde and brunette respectively as they all shook hands. "...these are a couple of my closest friends; Chloe Sullivan and Lex Luther. Liz's parents owned a restaurant..."

"More of a greasy spoon... light on the spoon, heavy on the grease." Maria dead panned.

Liz rolled her eyes skyward as Lana paused for a moment. Sensing that Maria was done, for the time being at least, she picked right up where she had left off. "...in Roswell, called the Crash Down."

"Roswell," Chloe murmured as the word piqued her curiosity. "That wouldn't be New Mexico? Would it?" Something was tugging at the back of her mind. She made a mental note, reminding herself to go through her files and see what she had on Roswell. Smallville wasn't the only town that catered to the strange or the unusual.

"Yes," Liz answered as her soft brown, doe like eyes met Lex's intense gaze.

"And just to get it out of the way... Neither of us have ever seen a space ship or any little green men. Unless you count the time..." Her voice trailed off as a soft rose colored blush bloomed in her cheeks as she realized everyone's attention had settled on her. She coughed lightly, a little gasp as she said, "which really isn't important anyway."

Chloe's eyes lit up as she sensed an incredibly embarrassing, funny story just waiting to be soaked up. "Please go on."

"Don't mind Chloe," Lana put in with a friendly smile. "She the local busy body. She also runs the school newspaper, The Torch, which kind of makes the busy body part an occupational hazard."

"Hey," Chloe hissed with a fake snarl.

"Not to offend either of you," Lex began mildly, "but I'm a little curious about how a pair of young girls, such as yourselves, came up with the financing to purchase the Talon?"

"Don't look at me," Maria said with a shrug. "I'm terrible when it comes to finances, barely balance my checkbook kind of girl right here. Now Liz's hobby, Max... He's a real wizard with money. Sometimes, I swear to God... it seems like he can pull it out of thin air."

The little inside joke earned a chuckle from everyone present. Even Liz, who shoots her best friend a scathing glare. "Not to be rude Mr. Luther, but I don't see where that information is any business of yours." Liz said with iron in her voice.

Lex quickly reevaluated his opinion of Liz. She might seem soft and innocent to the casual observer, but there was steel underneath the surface. Not very far under the surface either.

"Actually Lex is my partner," Lana informed them haltingly. Not that she was ashamed of Lex being her partner, but that she hadn't told them to begin with. Only that was the way Lex wanted things.

"I'm sorry Mr. Luther, but we're not looking for a partner," Liz informed him.

"Lex, Mr. Luther happens to be my father. Not a very pleasant person, hence the impending prison sentence. And don't worry, I'm not looking for a partner either. My only interest in the Talon is helping a friend... same as now. You buy Lana out, you buy me out."

Liz held Lex's gaze for a few seconds. With a sharp nod she moved to the side a little and pulled out a chair as she said, "fair enough."

Maria sat down across from Liz, on the seat Lex had just vacated less then a minute earlier, once he was satisfied with her financial records. Liz slid the portfolio back into the soft leather satchel.

before asking, "what was it?" Maria had made sure that there was nobody close enough to overhear them. After nearly three years of training Liz had refined control of her abilities, as had Kyle, and while she didn't always see something when she touched an object - whether it was living or inanimate - most time she did. When it was bad she always became defensively aggressive.

Like she had today.

With a casually look around Liz made sure nobody was paying the slightest attention to them. A year and a half evading the F.B.I.'s special unit had taught them all how to read, not just a room, but the people occupying it as well.

That was before a bold raid on the unit's headquarters had them scattered to the remotest, most isolated locals on the planet. With no data to back them up - and altered personal records - the ones that didn't wind up dead or institutionalized, went were their orders sent them without so much as a whimper.

Knowing what Max, Liz, and the others were capable of sometimes sent a cold shiver down Maria's spine - even though she knew they would never use their powers to harm anyone - and remembering how callously she had been treated when she had fallen into the Special Unit's hands still turned her stomach inside out, probably would until the day she died. They made the Skins seem warm and cuddly, and Maria found she had a hard time summoning up any sympathy for them.

Liz's voice is nothing more then a whisper as she rushed her words together. "Lana's going to be back from Paris by the time school starts." Her gaze continued to lazily sweep the room, never resting in one place. Over the years she had trained her mind so she was able to manipulate her visions; slow motion, freeze frame, rewind - it was like having an incredibly sophisticated video editing setup, hardwired directly into her brain - allowing her to pick out details she would have missed a few years ago. "Lana was here, waiting tables... the calendar was turned to August, students were doing homework."

As far as Maria was concerned Liz kept too much inside, and she knew Liz well enough to recognize an evasive answer when her best friend gave one and she wasn't about to let Liz duck her. She smiled pleasantly and said, "that's all well and good Liz, but it really doesn't explain mean, hostile girl you turned into."

With a soft exhalation Liz felt some of the tension she had been holding drain away. "I can always count on you." Taking a sharp breath her gaze fell on Lex's back as he talked to Lana. He had apparently bought her story about Max winning a large sum of money in Las Vegas, and then how he managed to turn those winnings into a small fortune in the stock market. All the paperwork was legitimate so there wasn't any reason not to believe it. "It was strange... Lex was in a hospital bed hooked up to machines. He was in some kind of coma." She wiped moisture from the corner of her eye with the back of her hand as the images brought back memories of when her Grandmother passed away five years ago.

"That doesn't sound that different."

"That wasn't the strange part." Liz glanced back at Lex for a short instant then refocused her attention back on Maria. "The vision split. In one Lex died, I watched his funeral..." She had been surprised that there hadn't been more people in attendance, less then a dozen and several of them seemed enthused by the event.

"In the other?"

"Lex lived." Her voice held the cold hand of doom and she shuddered visibly. Not the reaction Maria had expected. But then Maria hadn't seen what Liz had. She hadn't witness Lex rise to the American Presidency. Didn't watch as Lex lead the world over the edge and into the abyss; see the corpses stacked in numberless heaps, the blasted ruins of cities around the world, the suffocating cloud of nuclear winter as it choke the life out of Earth.

As if the George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, and Tom Clancy aspects of her life weren't enough, somebody up there had to throw an all too healthy dash of Stephen King into the pot. At least there wasn't any Anne Rice or Raymond E. Fiest bubbling around in the stew that was her life. The last thing she wanted in her live were vampires, immortal humans, a family of incestuous witches, or all kinds of nearly omnipotent entities popping up in her life. _Not that they wouldn't have added all kinds of spice to an otherwise uneventful existence_.

"Have a good day ladies," Lex called out with a smile as he walked past.

"Take care of yourself Lex," Liz responded as he began to slip his sunglasses on.

Lex felt as if Liz had been warning him. As if she knew something was going to happen to him. This was Smallville, were weirdness and strange occurrences were the norm, not the exception. With a careless, but not all together carefree shrug Lex finished settling his glasses on his nose as he pulled open the door. The vague thought filed away, waiting for more data to be acquired before coming to any conclusions.

Wooden splinters covered the somber blue carpet all the way to the far end of the corridor where it t's out. The heavy oak door, that had once been a proper barricade to Giles Office, hung askew from its top hinge, its top screw.

Buffy gave the destruction an appreciative whistle. Her green eyes latched on to a large splinter that jutted out of the dark wood paneling even with the hollow of her throat. It was the size of a pen knife, small enough to fit in the palm of her hand.

Five minutes ago Giles had called her. He was rather frantic as he urged her to get down to his office with the utmost haste. His imperious tone alone was all the tiny blonde needed to make her drag her heels, but Faith had blown into her office. Figuratively speaking anyway. It looked as if it might have been literal in Giles' case though.

In the year since the destruction of Sunnydale the two oldest slayer had formed a friendship, of sorts. It was actually more of an alliance against the pest more commonly referred to as, the teenage slayers. They infested the Council Headquarters and training facilities like cockroaches, and while they weren't evil... they were teenagers.

It was a conspiracy of the highest order, or just the boundless efficiency of text messaging. If either of them became bogged down, or had managed to get themselves cornered by badgering adolescence, with their never ending questions; the other would swoop in, or maybe just phone, with urgent business that only they could deal with. Which mainly consisted of either lunch, possibly a brunch, or if it was night a light sweep of London.

She still found it amazing that her reputation alone could cause so many demons to relocate. It made a little more sense once Giles pointed out that she had; killed the Master, survived Spike, destroyed the Judge, averted Acathla from opening, prevented the Mayor's ascension, thwarted the Initiative and destroyed Adam, defeated Glory - the mad hellgod - while simultaneously turning Spike to the side of good, and finally stopping - at least for the time being - the First Evil.

Instead of holding a conversation, Faith simply stood in her office, fidgeting nervously as she practically strangled a thick sheaf of official looking documents. She didn't say anything and Buffy hadn't asked, but Faith looked intense. Like she was going to explode any second.

Looking at the hall Buffy was fairly sure she had. Disregarding the debris littering the carpet the tiny blonde took a casual stroll down the short corridor to Giles office.

Faith had left as suddenly as she had entered, and without the destruction she had obviously visited upon Giles sanctum. Buffy had known Faith wanted to talk, and for the first time their tentative, often strained friendship picked up right where it disintegrated nearly five years ago. She really hated the unspoken, "don't ask," policy that existed between them.

They could hang out, talk, have a good time so long neither one of them pushed that bond. Buffy found it amazing. She figured after five years the two of them would have learnt from the mistakes they made so long ago.

Obviously they hadn't .

As Buffy entered Giles libraresque office, she vowed all of that was going to change. She was going to sit the girl down and have a good long heart to heart with her about reaching out and helping a friend when you know they're in trouble.

Giles glanced up as Buffy gingerly opened the door and entered. "Ah, Buffy." Rising he moved around the massive, antique, hand carved mahogany desk that was loaded down with ancients books, large unrolled scrolls, and volumes of aged parchments.

She recognized almost the entire collection. Most dealt with the immortal, a being now residing deep in the bowls of the Watcher Council's rebuilt headquarters. Enscrolled with the strongest enchantments, bound with mystical chains, encased in a form fitted concrete casket, and lock inside an impregnable vault. Buffy didn't like it, but it wasn't like there were a lot of options when dealing with someone as amoral and vile as Angelus, as determined as Spike, and impossible to kill; hence the title, The Immortal.

"You wanted to see me?" She commented casually as she looked around the room. Aside from the door nothing appeared to be damaged. "Something to do with Faith, judging by the state she was..." she stopped, face going pale as she gasp, "oh god. I sound British. I so need to get out of this country."

A tiny wisp of a smile slipped onto Giles' face. While their relationship was nowhere close to what it had been in the past he was glad they were working things out. He expected it would never be what it had been prior to her death and resurrection, but at least that cold disdain she held him in after the destruction of Sunnydale had finally begun to thaw. It was a hefty chunk of work, especially on his part, but it was well worth it. So he worked at it, they both did.

He answered her question with a small nod as he picked up a folded piece of expensive paper. "Faith was here when this letter arrived for her," he said handing the sheet of paper to Buffy.

Reaching out she took the letter from Giles as she asked, "what does it say?"

"Its probably best if you read it for yourself." He stepped back giving Buffy a little more space. Giles didn't know if the letter held any validity or not, but it was better to read it for oneself, rather then hear as second hand news. It held more of an impact.

With a touch of trepidation Buffy eyed the paper warily - as if live vipers were somehow contained within - before flipping the piece of parchment open. The handwriting was crisp and clean and easily legible.

_**Faith,**_

_**You don't know me anymore then I know you. An extremely tragic turn of events that I had hoped to rectify, in person, with all possible haste, but sadly, if you are reading this then that most likely will never happen.**_

_**I should explain who I am, who I am to you, before I continue. If you aren't sitting down I suggest you do so. What I am about to tell you, while it may sound beyond belief, I assure you it is all true.**_

_**My name is Alexander Luther. Everyone calls me Lex though.**_

_**Since there is no easy way to say what I have to, I'm just going to go ahead and say it. I am your brother,**_

Buffy's head snapped up, her eyes instantly locking on Giles' face. "Is this true?"

The old man shrugged tiredly. "I don't know. The Council had never been able to trace Faith's linage. Her mother passed away when she was four years old. Faith herself almost died that same day. Some type of gas leak." Sliding his hands into his pant's pockets he gave his head a sad, rueful shake as he continued, "I don't even know if Faith remembered her birth mother or not. Considering her reaction to the documentation that came with that letter, I'd have to say yes."

Giles' voice was nothing more then a distant murmur to Buffy as she had returned her attention to the letter in her hand. She easily picked out the spot she had left off at.

_**half brother actually.**_

_**There's documentation enclosed that will verify the story I'm about to tell you. There is also I signed and notarized consent form that will allow you to run blood and DNA test between us.**_

_**What I'm about to tell you is a story as old as man, played out through history time and time again, so I'm just going to stick to the facts.**_

_**Twenty-two years ago, Lionel Luther, our father, had a five month long affair with one of his numerous and quite often, extremely beautiful, executives assistants, Taylor Wells. Your mother.**_

_**It wasn't his first such affair, and you're not unique as the only child to be produced by such an event.**_

_**The affair ended when Taylor told Lionel about the pregnancy, who of course wanted absolutely nothing to do with a second illegitimate child. It just wouldn't work with the empire he was cultivating.**_

_**Just like that Taylor was shipped off, given a hefty severance check each month for the next five years.**_

_**I don't know what changed. Maybe somebody was getting to close to the truth. He never did like the idea of an axe being held over his head.**_

_**Whatever the reason he felt it was time to remove the thorn from his side.**_

_**I'm sorry to have to be the one to tell you this, but it was your father that had your mother killed. I don't know why he spared your life.**_

_**Maybe he is human after all. I had never seen any signs of it before, but...**_

_**I suppose anything is possible.**_

_**Its hard to believe since he's now facing a life prison sentence for the murder of his own parents.**_

_**I really would have loved to have meet you, gotten to know you. If you're reading this though then there is every possibility that I'm dead.**_

_**Dad never was forgiving with the people he felt betrayed him.**_

_**I'm sorry that we'll never get the opportunity to meet. I don't know if we would have gotten along or even been able to stand each other. It would have been something finding out though.**_

_**Your brother,**_

_**Lex.**_

"Son of a bitch," Buffy growled despising this supposed brother for what he had just set in motion. "I've got to find her," she announced with a sense of dread settling in the pit of her stomach. She had an extremely bad feeling about this letter, as if it were the catalyst for some horrible, catastrophic.

"Dawn has already run a search on Lex Luther."

"Smallville," Buffy said as she re-scanned the letter.

Giles' eyes widen fractionally. He hadn't expected her to know that. And let her know as much when he asked, "how did you know that?"

"I do happen to watch the news Giles," she said with a playful smile. "You get information from it faster then a book. Lex Luther, son of Lionel Luther, is in a coma. Apparently he was poisoned a few hours after his father was convicted of murder. A young man, Clark Kent, disappeared after testifying against and Chloe Sullivan, another witness against Lionel Luther died in a mysterious explosion." She put extra emphasis on the word mysterious indicating she didn't think it was all that mysterious. She looked up seeing the look of amazement plastered on Giles' face. "I do watch the news."


	2. Chap 2: Losing Grip

Chapter Two: Losing Grip

Faith didn't even see the terminal as she passed through the busy Metropolis International Airport Causeway. Despite the fact that she moved among the throng of people without ever bumping anybody, her eyes were glazed in a sort of tunnel vision with one simple goal in mind. Reach the exit as quickly as possible while drawing minimum attention to herself.

Ever since she had received and subsequently read Lex's letter, she had been operating in that same state of mind. One efficient step at a time; get her travel gear ready to go, find and board an international flight that would get her close to Metropolis, get out of terminal, find Lex, find out if what he said was the truth, and if it was…

Kill Lionel Luthor.

She still couldn't believe she had left the letter in Giles' office, but she had been so numb at the time, her mind had barely been functioning at all. It had fallen between her hands and she hadn't thought about picking a piece of paper up. She remembered seeking Buffy's help, stopping in her office, but she knew – instinctively - that Buffy would be opposed to her killing the man responsible for her mother's death, and left before giving herself away.

Buffy would be on her trail though - all because she left that letter behind. It was possible the blonde was already in Metropolis. She would have been able to book passage aboard the fastest flight available, not stow away in the cargo hold of some slower than shit freight hauler. The only thing that might slow her was costumes - a ritual Faith was more than willing to forgo since she had no passport, had entered the country illegally; and if she remembered correctly, was still a wanted felon - but Faith doubted it. One of the things the council had always been exceedingly good at was paperwork.

Faith knew that Buffy was going to try and stop her. She hoped, she prayed that it didn't come down to a fight between them. She didn't know why Buffy cared about what happened to her. With the exception of her mother, nobody else ever had. Definitely not her father, and certainly not this half-brother she had suddenly gained. Probably not the other one either.

A stone blind fool, who also happened to be deaf and dumb as well, would be able to see what he wanted with her.

Revenge.

She didn't really care. If Lionel Luthor died by her hands it would be for her reasons. Not anyone else's.

She squinted slightly, her eyes quickly readjusting after more then a day in near absolute darkness. With all the energy and frustration she has pent up Faith wished it was night. Something to kill right about now would really help her take the edge off. Slinging her pack over her head and across her back; Faith stepped into the harsh glare of the sun as she crossed the threshold of the automatic doors and melted into the crowd, seeming to vanish from sight.

**Three days earlier**

"What makes you think I want Peter found?" Harry asked Mary Jane with harsh skepticism. He couldn't believe that she had come here with this, expecting him to jump onboard with her hair brain idea. Especially considering how he felt about…

He cut off that line of thought and swirled his scotch, just managing to keep the amber liquid from sloshing over the rim. She was still beautiful - whether she was dressed to the nines, or dressed down as she was today - that was something that was never going to change about her, and he could still become loss with the simple act of gazing at her. He no longer loved Mary Jane, that emotion had died a long time ago. Still he didn't want to see her hurt either. Learning that somebody you love was in fact a cold blooded killer had a way of setting your world spinning.

He should know. He was still trying to stop the free fall he found himself in after the discovery of Norman Osborne's hidden labyrinth and the secrets it contained. He didn't know when his father had the work done to the manor house; it could have been anytime considering the minuscule amount he spent there, but it was extensive and had to have been a massive undertaking. That he never saw, never suspected anything was going on eat at him even now. Like a dog gnawing on a bone. Only the dog was guilt and the bone was his conscious.

He should have known.

When Mary Jane had come up the walk, her desert brown flats making a dull thwack with each step she had taken on the hard stone walk, she had marveled at the palatial mansion, its perfectly manicured lawns; shrubbery, trees, gardens, with marble fountains that spouted rivers of sparkling water; all of it put the rising starlet in mind of the estates of European Nobility. At least from what she has seen in photos and movie reels, since she has never visited one in person.

This was also her first time visiting the Osborne family home, not even when dating Harry was she ever invited here. In those days - less then a year ago - Harry had hated this place. In recent days he seemed never leave it. It had become his sanctuary… and his tomb.

"How about, because he's your best friend?" She managed to moderate her tone, enough so that her anger didn't come through anyway.

"Was my friend," Harry began as he turned away from Mary Jane and took the three steps necessary to reach the liquor cabinet. So use to the ornate and extravagant that he didn't see the richness that surrounded him. With a too steady hand he picked up a decanter of scotch and began to fill his glass. "That whole protecting the man who killed my father," he took a drink, a small sip as he turned back to face her. He switched which hand was holding his glass, and then used his occupied hand to point at her with an extended forefinger. "It tends to put a real strain on whatever friendship was there." Having made his point he raised his glass to his lips and took another shallow sip. The liquor had become an almost constant companion to him in recent days. It was the only thing that managed to keep his world from crumbling around him, gave him the strength to face the day ahead.

It was all she could do to keep from gaping at him in wide eye wonder. He sounded so cold, so distant to her. Nothing at all like the Harry she had dated. "Peter's the best friend you could have ever hoped to find. Anybody else would have seen you as a meal ticket. Peter never asked you for one thing, not a single nickel no matter how down he was. He'd give you the shirt off his back if you asked. He would risk everything to protect you and never expect anything from you in return. And do you know why?"

Harry could do nothing but shake his head. He had never seen this side of Mary Jane before. It was one thing to know somebody was strong willed, fiery, and passionate… quite another to have that unrelenting fury directed at you.

"Because you never saw Peter the science geek, or Peter the four eyed nerd, or anything else. You just might have been the first person to treat him as a human being." The utterance was hard for Mary Jane to make, but even she had to admit that until their senior year, towards the end of it, she had never really seen Peter either. True, she was usually the one that made everyone stop tormenting him, but she had done that for pretty much everyone. "Sometimes Peter can be loyal to a fault," she said in a whisper meant for herself. She didn't know how he could like her, much less love her after the way she had treated him, or hadn't treated him.

Harry snorted at the comment. "And both of us have seen where those loyalties lie, now haven't we?" He took another, larger pull from his shot glass.

"And maybe neither of us knows anything that happened the night your father died… it was the same night the Green Goblin kidnapped me and forced Spider-Man to choose between me and a gondola full of children. Then the two of them disappeared. Maybe the Goblin was using your father the same way he did me? A hostage, only this time Spider-Man wasn't able to save him."

Harry emptied his shot glass in a single swallow, too quickly as some of the liquor dribbled out of the corner of his mouth. He used the back of a shaky right hand to wipe his chin dry. If anybody ever uncovered the secrets he was holding; Norman Osborne being the Green Goblin, his involvement with Dr. Otto Octavian. The law suits alone would bankrupt him.

Mary Jane herself had multiple grounds with which to seek recompensing. Both Norman and Octavian had used her to draw Spider-Man to them. Both times he had been responsible, whether it was direct, as it had been with Dr. Octopus, or indirect, like simply complaining to his father when he had been hurt by two people he thought of as friends.

Then there was always the possibility of criminal charges, government sanctions. After all he was the one who gave Octavian what he needed to run his experiments, all in return for Spider-Man. He had risked the world, in more ways then one, and walked away unscathed.

So far.

Peter knew, but Peter would never betray somebody he considered a friend. Even if that friend wanted him dead. What Mary Jane had said about him was the simple truth. Peter was loyal to a fault.

Still there was always the chance Peter would tell someone, had already told.

Harry quickly refilled the glass. This time the procedure didn't go nearly as smoothly as it did the first time. The liquid spilled over the side as both hands continued to shake, most of the liquor landed on the imported Ming Dynasty rug, but enough ended up in the glass to satisfy Harry.

"Is that your answer to everything? Another drink will fix the world." Her voice was heavy with contempt.

The sneer was drunken, and more then a little evil. There was more then a hint of a slur to his words as he said, "why don't you come back to me after you've had somebody you love ripped away from you."

"You self center little…" Anger stilled her words when caution wouldn't have. She simple couldn't think of anything vile enough to describe him at the moment. "I don't know what I ever saw in you. And just in case you haven't noticed it, Peter's gone. He might not be dead…" _Dear lord please don't let him be dead_. "…but for all that I can find him he might as well be. And I'm the one that drove him…"

"Aaarrghhh!" Harry roared as whirled, a slight wobble to his movements as he hurled the glass against the light, sand wood paneled wall. It shattered into a thousand tiny shards that sprayed a small portion of the room. Most of the liquor had already left the glass on its flight, but enough remained to put a dark stain on the wall. "He killed my father!"

Mary Jane shook her head decisively. "Peter isn't…" She stooped as she realized what Harry had said. Not Spider-Man, just he… when they had been talking about Peter.

Harry's chest heaved as if he had just finished running a marathon. He looked from the wall to Mary Jane and back again as if in a trance. It was out now, almost out. He couldn't believe he had let it slip like that.

"Peter would never… Harry you can't believe that Peter killed your father. Why would he? He respected you father."

Harry looked at her, truly looked at her for the first time. "You still don't understand MJ? How could you when you don't even know?" The brief spurt of rage seemed to have burnt off whatever effect the alcohol had on him. With purpose he moved pass Mary Jane with a steady step.

Curious she followed him as he led her deeper into the huge manor; out the door and down the long, marble tiled hallway she traversed when the stiff butler had pointed her in the direction of the study - the walls were covered with paintings; portraits and landscapes for the most part, the little nooks held small pieces of art and tiny figurines - to the large, columned foyer she had seen upon first entering, up a flight of stairs wide enough to accommodate half a dozen people abreast, to the second floor landing, down another hall, past several doors, until they reached an exceedingly long stretch of wall where Harry came to a stop.

"I don't know when he did any of this," Harry said cryptically as he pressed the palm of his hand against a piece of wood paneling. There was a soft click and a section of the wall opened, just a crack, nothing that anybody would see if they weren't looking for it. It was seamless. He hooked his fingers under the small lip and pulled it open.

The soft light filling the chamber gave the room an eerie, surreal appearance. Mary Jane gasped at the sight before her. It was something she had hoped to never see again. They haunted her nightmares to this day. Involuntarily she took a step back. "Oh, god MJ. I'm sorry. I didn't think…"

She felt backed into a corner, as if his had been some elaborate setup. She wasn't going to let that intimidate her. "What are you doing with these Harry?"

"They were his," he said simply, letting the implications sink in.

It didn't take long and she could feel the anger rising. "You knew," was as soft as the hiss of a sword being drawn. "How long have you known?"

"Only a few days, I swear MJ. I just stumbled upon it. It was like they wanted me to find them," he confided to her.

"They're evil."

"I remember MJ… He killed a dozen people right in front of me, his own son. Almost killed me, terrorized everyone at the Amnesty Parade... You almost died there as well, and again later. All so he could get at Peter." His eyes settled on her when she didn't react to the name he used.

Her voice was numb when she spoke, like she was dead inside. "You should destroy it all. It's evil. It was used for evil."

"Don't you think I know that?"

Mary Jane turned to him, an incredulous look on her face. "You're going to keep it?" It wasn't so much a question as it was an outright accusation.

"I can do some real good with it MJ. Make up for some of the misery it's caused."

"How're you gonna make up for anything Harry… you can't face the truth when it's staring you right in the eyes?" She stepped out of the room. "Another free piece of advice Harry. A costume requires you to make sacrifices and hard choices… two things you have never been very good at."

Harry watched Mary Jane walk away. She didn't understand what he was talking about. Not surprising when he stopped to consider that he didn't understand what he had been insinuating. Could he actually have been suggesting what he thought he was? What Mary thought he had been?

He moved deeper into the chamber, walking amongst the suits of Goblin armor. He came to the back wall and opened a hidden drawer. After a moment he reached into the drawer and withdrew a thick journal, his father's journal from after his transformation into the Green Goblin. It was obvious from his writings that he had been insane; paranoid, with delusions of grandeur, not to mention psychotic as well as sociopathic.

Reaching back into the drawer Harry took out a large vial full of an amber green liquid. This was what had given Norman Osborne his super human abilities; reflexes, strength, senses, endurance. It was also what had driven him insane.

Mary Jane had been right about a great many things she said. No more so then he wasn't very good at making the big decisions, the hard choices. Sacrificing of himself. He stared long and hard at the liquid contained within the glass.

Could he do it?

Could he risk it all?

Liz hated hospitals, the smell of them; that too clean antiseptic bleach that everybody associated with hospitals - the feel of them; the oppressive weight of sickness that bore down on you relentlessly. She supposed hospitals weren't all bad; people did get better and leave them, most babies had been born in one, both of which were good things. Unfortunately she had never experienced either in a hospital. It seemed to her that the only time she was ever in one was either when somebody died or they were dying; first Grandma Parker, then Alex. The only people she has ever been closer to were Maria and Max.

With her arms folded just under her breast, and a hostile expression detracting only slightly from her overall attractiveness, Liz paced the corridor in a twelve stride circuit. She wouldn't have been here now if not for the fact that Lana had been in the Talon, finalizing some paperwork, when she received Martha Kent's phone call about Lex being rushed to Smallville General; something about collapsing at his home. Lana hadn't looked very steady hearing the news, and Liz had instinctively volunteered to drive her to the hospital. Once there Liz felt obligated to stay with Lana until she was sure the young woman was going to be all right.

The corridor Liz waited in while Lana checked on Lex was like all hospital corridors; sterile and bland. Some of them would vary in color scheme, or some other mundane thing, but nobody ever really noticed even when they saw. She didn't bother looking in on Lex; she already knew what she would see… what she had already seen.

Somewhere in the maze of halls and corridors that made up the hospital, Mrs. Kent was going over paperwork. For some reason Lex had listed Martha as person to contact in case of emergency. Liz could understand why from the few brief encounters she has had with the kindly older woman. She was the sort of woman most children, when they got older anyway, wished was their mother while they were young.

The door opened quietly allowing Lana to slip out. The girl was a pale imitation of the woman Liz had first met three days ago. Her eyes were dark, sunken hallows. All the laughter and life seemed to have dried up inside her. The angry young man she had met the other day; Clark she believed his name was, Lana hadn't offered and Liz didn't pry, seemed to be the source of Lana's trouble. Or it could have been his blonde, enigmatic California cousin, Kara that Lana had a problem with. There was someone that Liz could believe was dropped off in a space ship.

Lana let the door close behind her, and then leaned on the piece of solid pressed wood. With everything that has happened to her she felt twice her age. "Guess my attending the Paris School of the Arts just got put on an indefinite hold… Sometimes I think this town is never going to let me go." She said to Liz, but spoke more for herself.

"I used to feel that way about Roswell," Liz confessed. "That I was never going to get away. That I'd spend the rest of my life working in the Crash Down and never see the world. Never fall in love; never have a life of my own."

Lana looked at Liz instead of looking through her. "What happened?"

"I met Max, we fell in love," Liz whispered. She bit the corner of her lip; her face beamed fiercely and an intense sparkle gleamed in her dark eyes. Instantly Lana saw the young teenager that Liz must have been when this occurred. "Eventually we left." Though, at times it hardly seemed as if Roswell had left them behind.

"And you ended up in Smallville." As far as Lana was concerned it didn't really make a lot of sense.

Liz smiled; a faint yet friendly grin as she said, "life doesn't usually take you down the road you think it's going to, far from it." She studied Lana for a moment. Sometimes her powers were no help what-so-ever. Most of the time they simply made things worse then they already were. It always seemed to be more about interpretation then any literal translation. "Go to Paris Lana."

Shock filled Lana's face as she asked, "What… how could you think I'd just abandon one of my best friends?"

"Lana," Liz began in a comforting, almost hypnotic tone. "Whether Lex's condition improves or worsens has absolutely nothing to do with your presence outside this door; being in Smallville or Paris."

"She's right Lana," Martha said as she stepped up to the two young women. Her approach had been as soft as her words were. "Lex would never want you to put your future on hold… You know that as well as I, he'd be the first one to tell you that if he was able."

"I know, it's just hard."

Martha nodded, a sad sympathetic smile creasing her worry strained face. "If leaving home was easy…" She left the thought there, not really sure what to say after that.

"Should we even be down here?" Kyle asked as he followed Isabel down the narrow passage and into the cave. "I mean, this is sort of private property."

"Private property that happens to be filled with alien script," Isabel answered directing the stream of light from her flashlight at the rocky ground as she descended into a large semi circular cavern. The floor was uneven, rising and lowering with little rhyme or reason. Several outcroppings jutted from the walls creating hollows, with dark shadows that gave the area an oppressive air. At least Isabel attributed the ominous feeling to the semi-darkness she found herself in. If the truth were to be told, she had been feeling antsy long before they ever found the entrance, as if something didn't want her here. This however was far too important to just abandon on what was probably nothing more then the burrito she had for lunch haunting her.

She didn't remember falling asleep, but she had woken with a start and an unshakable knowledge of the location of the caves they had been seeking out. Ever since news footage of not just one, but half a dozen different pieces of alien script was aired on national television. Since Kyle was the only person there at the time he was automatically volunteered to escort her, not that he would have let her go without him.

The script wasn't identical to the book Alex had deciphered, but all three of them; Max, Michael, and Isabel recognized the writings even if they couldn't read them. Everyone in the group – their family - decided they needed to be investigated; find out if they were a threat, warning, or simply coincidental. "It's not like this is the first time alien writings have been discovered, mixed in with Native Americ…" She stopped, gazing at the wall in wonder as the light from her flashlight splashed over it.

"God," she breathed softly trying to take it all in at a single glance.

Kyle stepped up beside her to get a better view without having to strain to look over her shoulder. "It's incredible," he agreed in a reverent tone. He reached out a hand and brushed his fingertips over what appeared to be Stone Age cave drawings and intermingled with alien script. None of it made any sense to him, but that wasn't all that surprising. He had never claimed to be the brains of the group. "Any idea what it says?"

"Haven't got a clue." She definitely felt like she didn't belong here, except it wasn't exactly that. It was more like something didn't want her here. It was a malevolent presence, one that would relish the opportunity to do her harm. Either that or she was letting her imagination get the better of her. "I think maybe we should get out of here?"

"But, we only just got here." Kyle looked at her as he added, "besides… I thought this is what you guys have been going on about."

"You can't feel it can you?" She asked as her eyes scanned the dark recesses of the cave, searching for the eyes she felt. "Somebody watching us."

"Now you sound like Maria after a, "Friday the Thirteenth," marathon," Kyle joked teasingly. "But hey, if you wanna go… we'll go. It's your nickel after all."

"Thank you," She said sounding uncommonly grateful.

He put his arm around her back and gently turned her towards the passage out. "This place has you spooked something fierce." A note of deep concern etched his voice. In all the years that he's known Isabel Evens he has never known her to let her emotions get the better of her. There had been the Christmas Nazi experience, and just prior to her wedding she gone just a little off the deep end.

Michael was the hot head who flew off the handle at the slightest provocation, and Maria only slightly less so, but normally in a completely different direction, for completely different reasons that still somehow involved Michael. Max was their defacto leader, but followed his heart far more often then his head. Liz was the brain and soul of the group; she was the one that always seemed to know what to do, even if it was Max that brought it all together. Isabel though, she always maintained her composure, no matter what was going on in the world around her; she always had the strength, the fortitude to stay the course, and keep the rest of them there right alongside her.

As they turned Isabel screamed and gave a start as she jumped back, as the light from her flashlight illuminated a body lying by one of the long stone pillars that supported the weight of the cave roof. Kyle kept her on her feet even as he stepped in front of her shielding her body with his own. Max would kill him if he let anything happen to his sister. His right hand came up, fingers spread slightly, and suddenly the cave was basking in a gentle light that suffused every inch of the cavern. It didn't come from anywhere, yet it lit everything.

"Do you know him?" He asked without thinking. Isabel still retained enough of her composure to shoot an incredulous glare at the back of his head. Kyle must have felt the look because he said, "right… Sorry, forgot we don't know anybody in this town. Well except for that cute waitress at the Talon, what's her name?"

"I hope you plan on doing better then that if you ask her out," Isabel said stepping around Kyle. She hated being shielded, plus she had far more experience with her powers then he did with his. "Woman tend to find it flattering when you actually remember their names, its just one more of those strange customs we have… part of that whole feeling appreciated thing." They had tried dating a year and half ago, briefly. It was an unquantifiable disaster and the pair went back to simply being best friends.

"I'll be sure to keep that in mind, if you know; psycho killer isn't still down here." Kyle shot nervous glances around the cavern, but there was no place that anybody could hide down here anymore. There were no more dark shadows for a person to lay in ambush, waiting for that perfect moment to strike.

Isabel knelt down next to the man. He was older with dark blonde bordering on reddish gold hair that was beginning to show signs of his age. She estimated that to be about the same as Sheriff Valenti; late forties to early fifties. He had those same rugged - what most older women would consider - good looks as the Sheriff as well.

Her hand hovered just above his chest. She didn't need to touch him in order to determine his condition, although if there were normal humans around she would have, to keep up appearances if nothing else. Of course if there had been a normal human down here they probably would have run off screaming because of Kyle's, "let there be light," display.

"His breathing's shallow and his pulse is weak, but he's still alive." Her voice was like a white hot knife blade just removed from the flames. "We need to get him to a hospital."

"And how are we going to that?" Kyle questioned then pointed out, "in case you forgotten we walked here, a good two miles."

She glared at him again hating the fact he was right. Even using their powers to carry him, there was no way they could get him to the house they were renting. "We'll get him out of the cave, a couple hundred yards away from it or so… then we'll call for help."

"Good plan… hello, operator," he mimed talking into a cell phone, "I'm in the middle of the woods with an unconscious guy I found. Would I mind giving you directions, not at all. I see trees, trees, and wow what a surprise, more trees… Oh, you know exactly were that is. Well gosh I guess it's a good thing I moved to the middle Hicksville."

"Smallville," Isabel corrected. "Now grab his feet and lets get going."

"How come I get the feet?" He complained yet moved next to the stranger's feet.

Neither one of them touched him, yet suddenly he rose off the ground. He lay suspended on the air as if a stretcher were underneath him. Slowly they began climbing the rough passage out. Isabel glanced back once - something still nagging at her - and said, "Kyle, don't forget to turn off the lights."

"Sorry about that."

The cave descended back into darkness, only the minuscule light streaming in through the passageway give it scant illumination. A light that brightens dimly as a crack in the wall of reality - between what is physical and what is not - cast its eerie glow. From within - if you were to listen close enough - a voice, a dark whisper can be heard saying a single word. A word filled with hate and desire.

"Antarian."


	3. Chap 3:Scenes From An Italian Restaurant

Chapter Three: Scenes From An Italian Restaurant

"Thank you," Buffy said as Hank Lidge pulled his dark blue, late eighties flatbed pick-up to the curb in front of the Talon. Lidge was an older man nearing fifty. His athletic body, sun dark from spending long hours under the harsh yellow sun, was still firm and trim from years working his farm. Hair that had been raven dark in his youth had turned salt and pepper more then a decade ago.

Buffy was sorely disappointed that Lidge hadn't been the mold for the stereotypical small town farmer; standoffish and stoic who needed words pulled from his mouth with a pair of pliers. Hank Lidge had a penchant to ramble that rivaled her skill in that department as he bounced from subject to subject with each breath he took; from his crops, to local gossip, to the weather, to some of the stranger events that had befallen their small town, how the high school athletic teams had fared in recent years, to his wife's – Irene – arthritic hip.

His favorite topic of conversation, the one he returned to time and time again, were his five children: three girls; Catherine, Caroline, and Cynthia and two boys; Craig and Carl. Craig and Carl were the oldest and youngest respectively with the three girls falling in between. All five of them had gone to collage and later moved to the big city with good paying jobs. He might have rambled off what they were, but by that point Buffy had tuned the man out, simply making the appropriate noises to keep up appearances. She didn't want to appear rude.

He said he was proud of them, but Buffy had heard the bitterness in his voice when he said they didn't visit as much as they use to. He understood – so he said – they had families, lives of their own to live now.

Buffy found the name of the town – Smallville – to be a tad inaccurate. What she had seen of it was far larger then Sunnydale, though it was mostly flat farmland with some dense thickets – the locals probably thought of as forest – scattered throughout the sea of green.

The town itself was as its name implied… Small. In LA, or any city of stature, Smallville proper would be swallowed whole; lost in only a few blocks. The people that clogged the sidewalks were more in keeping with Buffy's somewhat prejudicial view of Midwesterners; clean and serviceable, but a decade or twenty out fashion. As if the rest of the world had somehow left them behind. She could hardly point fingers though; her own clothes were hardly the height of fashion.

"Wasn't no problem," Lidge replied as Buffy closed the door. "Nothing no one else in these parts wuldn't've done."

Buffy nodded and stepped away from the truck. There wasn't anything else to say and prolonging the conversation was the last thing she wanted to do. She had heard enough from Hank Lidge to never want to hear another word out of the man.

The truck pulled away from the curb in a slow, jerking and bucking heap. A soft sigh escaped Buffy's lips as it slipped easily into the non-existent traffic and the tiny slayer visible relaxed.

"What now?" Dawn asked in a relatively non-aggressive tone of voice. Anger had fled during the long bus ride from Metropolis to a rural road on the outskirts of Smallville that intersected with the main thoroughfare; a simple two lane black top. It was as close to the town as the bus ran.

Buffy had thought Dawn was going to go ballistic on the driver when he told them there was a bus that expressed between Metropolis and Smallville, which ran at noon everyday. Her face had darkened considerably and Buffy thought she had see steam coming from her sisters ears. Dawn had managed to reign herself in though. The thought of dispatching the bus driver and commandeering the bus in order to reach Smallville with all possible haste had flashed though Buffy's mind for several seconds. It was quickly dismissed when she remembered she could barely drive a car, never mind the monstrosity that a bus was. With that she hustled Dawn off the bus. At the time she had mused that if the Airline hadn't lost their luggage she would have had something to sit on.

The twenty mile jog into Sunnydale would have taken her less then forty minutes; fifteen if she really pushed herself. Dawn however didn't possess nifty slayer powers, and a five hour walk would put it near midnight before they got into town. Buffy knew she could have carried her sister, but she was already hearing the indignant squawk the younger girl would make and dismissed the idea before she ever broached the subject to Dawn. If it had become necessary Buffy knew she could sprint into town, or someplace nearby, steal a car – some of the things Spike had taught her did have value in the real world – and then come back and pick Dawn up.

Two things had stopped that plan though. First she didn't want to get arrested. Second; with her driving skills the only person brave enough to ride in a car she was driving had been Spike. Since he was already dead, the thought of a head on collision held little fear for him.

It wasn't her fault. As a slayer, the amount of time it took her to process all the information she took in was a fraction of what a normal person, even top athletes, needed. Most of the time Buffy felt as if she were waiting for the world to catch up with her, like she was just that split second ahead of it.

Lidge had been a godsend, and the only reason she would never say a cross word to or about the man. When he had picked them up they had been standing on the dirt shoulder of the road, surrounded – no matter where they looked – by a never ending sea of green.

Buffy's gaze shifted to the coffee shop; the Talon. Its facade dominated the street. It was out there, extremely noticeable especially compared to the rest of the store fronts. They all seemed rather placid; as if they had been there so long nobody needed to look at them. That everyone knew what was what; that they would be there today, tomorrow… just like they had been there yesterday and the fifty thousand yesterdays before that one.

"I don't know about you," Buffy began to answer Dawn without looking back at her sister as she took a step towards the Talon, "but I'm gonna get myself some coffee."

A resigned sigh slipped out of Dawn's mouth. She was hot, tired, not to mention miserable to the core, and wanted nothing more then someplace she could catch her breath. Something less to do with coffee and more to do with an oversized bathtub that she could luxuriate in for several hours.

The transatlantic flight from England had been pleasant since she had slept nearly the entire way. Even getting through costumes was a breeze; the Watcher Council had worked its political magic and they had been bustled on through. Now she just wished somebody would work a little real magic and get their luggage back. According to the airline it was heading to Hawaii.

Non-stop.

She picked up her small carry on, a small pink backpack she kept her necessities in; toiletries, a spare set of clothes, sneakers, and a few books Buffy had insisted she take. Blowing out another disgruntle breath the lanky brunette followed her shorter sister into the Talon.

The aroma hit her once she pulled the door open; a mixture pastries, specially blended coffees, cookies, and brownies. It was like a physical blow. Her stomach chose that moment to rumble reminding her of exactly when the last time she ate and just how hungry she was.

Dawn easily spotted Buffy sitting at one of the small tables in the middle of the floor. She made her way over with a smooth economical stride and arrived at the same time as a dark haired young man, that was carrying a tray loaded down with two super large mugs of piping hot coffee, a pair of glazed blueberry muffins, a couple cookies; one was a chocolate chip that Buffy liked so much and the other was oatmeal, her personal favorite, though chocolate chip and peanut butter weren't that far behind.

"Thank you," she said taking a seat.

Max smiled at Dawn as he placed the items Buffy had ordered on the table. "Enjoy," he replied pleasantly.

Buffy kept her features schooled; had ever since she first saw Max Evens. The man was a spitting image of her first crush, Billy Fordham. To be more precise, what Ford would have looked like if he had lived another eight years.

Finishing up Max added, "If you need anything else… just let me know?" With an almost unnoticeable glance at Buffy he left the sisters to themselves. Something about him had freaked the tiny blonde; she hadn't given much of a start the first time she had laid eyes on him, but it had been there; like she recognized him, but hadn't expected to see him here. The way she recovered and went on as if nothing had happened told Max she would be a very dangerous in a poker game.

Now he had to decide what to do about it?

Dawn was oblivious to the exchange. Even if her eyes had been open and her entire sense of self wasn't being engulfed by the hazelnut fragrance wafting off the coffee under her nose; she still wouldn't have noticed anything. She took a cautious sip of the scolding coffee and sighed contently as the rich liquid swirled in her mouth. She swallowed and sighed in deep pleasure as she opened her eyes. "Now that you've had your coffee, what's the plan?"

Buffy ignored the question as she asked, "Doesn't he look familiar to you?"

Dawn took a deep breath. "Who?" She inquired taking an inquisitive look around.

"The server," Buffy answered without looking at Max.

The brunette glanced over at Max as she took a deeper sip of her coffee. Lowering her mug she gave her head a small, indifferent shake. "Should I?"

"He was only over the house like everyday," Buffy said in disbelief.

Dawn gave her head another little shake as she picked at her muffin. "Nothing," She answered with a speculative frown creasing her face. "Maybe… the monks didn't get everything…" She tapped her temple with her left index finger. "…in here?"

Buffy glanced away. Like Dawn she didn't like being reminded of her sister's supernatural origins. She would ignore, for all eternity, the fact that Dawn had ever been anything other then her sister, and all the memories of the childhood they shared having been implanted by a group of monks seeking to protect a mystical key, coveted by a deranged, exiled Hell God if she could. "We should probably find a motel… if this town has a motel," she added as an after thought. "Tomorrow I'll go check on Lex."

Dawn allowed Buffy to change the subject since she didn't want to talk about it either. Instead she asked, "You think you'll find Faith there?" hopefully. She desperately wanted to keep Faith from doing something stupid; something that would put her back in prison.

Slim shoulders shrug dejectedly as Buffy said, "I don't know. Hopefully she'll wait for proof before she goes off half cocked?"

Dawn gave a little half laugh; more sarcasm then amusement filled her voice as she said, "I thought half cocked was the only way Faith operated?"

"What's up with the blonde?" Marie asked as she stepped up beside Max. He had been spending an inordinate amount of time staring at a short, very attractive blonde haired woman in her late teens. Only she dressed like a woman five to six years older.

"She recognized me," Max answered slowly. A number of reasons why she would recognize him had been taking shape in his head. The reason that kept tugging at his mind the most was that she belonged to the FBI's special unit, only she wasn't old enough.

A chill coursed through Marie as the same thought flashed through her mind as well. "You don't know her?"

"Never seen her before," Max answered. Then he shrugged and added, "It could be I just remind her of somebody and I'm reading more into it?" He didn't sound very convincing.

"You don't believe that, do you?"

Max shook his head instead of vocalizing his answer.

Maria shifted her gaze to the young man approaching; his dark hair was rumpled like it always was. His jeans and t-shirt were stained slightly from a hard days work on the Kent farm. Ben Reilly had been a regular costumer for the past two weeks. He would show up about the same time every night; hang out for a few hours, and then head back to the bunk he had in the Kent's barn. Occasionally he would hitch a ride with one of the locals, but more often he would wind up making the journey on shank's mare.

A quaint little expression Maria had picked up since the group had moved to Smallville.

"Hey Ben," Maria greeted the young man. She was almost able to look him in the eyes.

"How're you doing tonight Mrs. G," Peter greeted Maria with a pleasant smile on his face as he stepped up to the counter. The last week had been as hectic as anything he ever faced in New York. Up by dawn, a twelve hour work day with a few breaks thrown in. The first five days hadn't been bad with both Jonathan and Clark showing him the ropes, though being around Clark had been strange. Sometimes when he was near the youngest Kent; his spider-sense had thrummed constantly, like a hazardous warning buzzer in the midst of a nuclear waste spill.

Then Clark had disappeared, Jonathan had been found in the middle of the woods by a pair of strangers. Now he was at Smallville General; clinically brain dead, while somewhere in the same building Lex Luthor fought for his life after being poisoned. Both Chloe Sullivan and her father had been killed when their house exploded; a gas leak, or so the police claimed.

Peter didn't think it was coincident that each event occurred less then a day after the conviction of Lionel Luthor, or that each person was pivotal in his conviction. Coincidences that big simply didn't exist as far as he was concerned.

Maria gave him a shrug, "you know how it is?"

"Grinding out another day," Peter said with a slight nod.

Maria smiled at the lame pun. It was one of the things Maria liked about Ben. He always had this infectious smile on his lips and an inane little joke. She had never seen him in a bad mood. He was often reserved, like he was watching from the periphery, afraid to get close. The day after Lionel Luthor conviction – the Day of Retribution, as she called it – was the closest she had seen him come to losing his composure. Instead he steadied himself and taken the day to day operation of the Kent farm into his own hands allowing Martha to concentrate on what really mattered, her husband. He was so resolute that he reminded her of Max, if Max ever developed a sense of humor. Like the hatchlings he was very good at not drawing attention to himself, but he never backed down from a confrontation either He possessed an unwavering confidence that most people could sense.

"Usual right?" Maria's question was more of a statement and she was already moving. She stopped suddenly as if she just remembered something important. Pointing from one to the other and back again she said, "Max this is Ben… Ben, Max."

Max extended his hand and said, "Nice to meet you," as Peter took it.

"Like wise," Peter replied giving Max's hand a firm squeeze.

Buffy stood up from her chair; cup in hand as she asked, "you want a refill?" walking backwards toward the counter.

Dawn shook her head no as she said, "unlike some people, most of the human species savors their coffee… we don't inhale it like you sub-generates do."

A small smile tugged at the corner of Buffy's lips with the playful taunt from her sister. It was close to a year after they left Sunnydale before Dawn had felt comfortable enough with her to make that kind of joke; any kind of joke. Buffy hadn't realized just how close their relationship was until it was gone.

With everything that had been going on, or hadn't been going on, at the time Buffy had desperately missed that closeness. The two girls had spent a lot of time last autumn learning how to forgive each other. The time away from everyone else had also helped Buffy, not forgive, but to re-channel her anger into something more constructive.

She was glad that the two of them had been able to return to a time when their lives were much simpler; more innocent, and not facing one end of the world crisis after another. Even if it was nothing more then an illusion planted in her head.

"Thank you," Peter said taking the mug of coffee from Maria. He took a step back…

"Buffy look…"

…and walked right into somebody.

"…out," Dawn finished looking away from the crash she expected to hear. A crash that never came.

The pair went down in a heap, yet kept their coffee inside their cups avoiding any breakage or even the slightest spillage.

Peter looked over at the woman he had bumped into. He had spotted her sitting at one of the tables in the center of the room when he entered. Tiny with blonde hair, but darker roots; she was beautiful, like a golden ray of sunshine that simply wanted to make your world a brighter place. Now she stared at him as if he had horns coming out of his head. He assumed a similar expression marred his face.

Normally he avoided collisions like this one with his eyes closed.

"Holy," Maria breathed quietly. The pair had almost looked like something out of one of those stupid anime cartoons Kyle liked to watch so much when they had fallen. DragonSquare X, or something like it. Michael, or even Max could probably tell her. Not that she cared what the name was, but now it would irritate her not knowing. They had moved so quickly, almost too fast for the eye to follow. At least to fast for her eye to follow.

Max reached out to the pair; offering both a hand as he asked, "you all right?"

"Fine," Peter said getting easily to his feet.

Buffy took the offered hand and allowed Max to pull her up. "I'm good."

Peter kept a casual eye on Buffy; watching her while trying to make it look like he wasn't. "Sorry about that," he said sounding genuinely apologetic.

"Totally my fault," Buffy replied. Her tone had adopted a California Valley Girl tilt; an almost brainless quality. "Like there's an eye in the back of my head," she added with a soft exhalation. "Let me buy you another."

"It's not necessary," Peter said with an abbreviated shake of his head.

"Wow," Buffy breathed out as she leaned in. "You didn't spill any?" Her voice was filled with astonishment.

"Neither did you," Maria pointed out helpfully.

"Yeah, but mine was almost empty," Buffy replied with a near innocent quality to her voice.


	4. Chap 4: The Man Comes Around pt 1

Chapter Four: The Man Comes Around – Part One

Small sounds filled the empty corridor emanating from the nurses hub. Little beeps from more then two dozen monitors. Soft clacks and clicks from a few shoes as they struck the black and white linoleum.

Hospitals always made Martha think of churches. Both were extremely solemn places, if for different yet similar reasons. Were a person could find solace in a church, grief was normally the order of the day in a hospital.

In the past few years Martha felt she had spent far too much time in hospitals. To her it seemed like she was here every other week because of one life threatening illness or another, one near fatal accident after another.

Martha stared in at her husband for a moment before pulling the door to his room closed. He looked so small, so frail with all the wires and tubes and IV's. Jonathan had been like that for the last few days, ever since he had been brought in.

Five days since Chloe was killed.

Five days since Lex had been poisoned.

Five days since Clark had disappeared without a trace.

At least Lana had managed to escape before all the carnage. Martha had talked to her twice in the five days, both times Lana had said she was coming back to Smallville, to lend Martha a helping hand, saying it was the least she could do after all the times the Kents had put themselves out to help her, but both times Martha had been able to convince Lana that the best thing she could do was stay where she was.

While Martha would have found the younger woman's presence reassuring, a comfort for no other reason then her familiarity, it wouldn't have been fair to Lana to use her in such a way.

And with Ben running the farm, novice that he was, there wasn't a need to hire any extra hands. The young man did as much work in an eight hour day as Clark accomplished in one, which was the equivalent of four full time hands.

It wasn't just the physical work that he did, but the repair work as well. He managed to fix the tractor, one of the old trucks, several pieces of outdated farm equipment, old piping. Ben simply seemed to pick up a book and figure out what to do, and then he went and did it.

After raising Clark, knowing what he was capable of. Martha knew that Ben possessed super human powers. Not that she had caught him using them, unless she counted not catching him as catching him, which she didn't.

Most of the time she would be worried about being in the vicinity of somebody that possessed super human powers; especially considering Smallville's track record. Ben however didn't own a pretentious or arrogant bone in his body. For someone that grew up in a city the size of New York he was innocent, naive to a fault. It was a quality that put her at ease.

Martha stopped outside the door to Lex's room and peered through the glass. It was dark inside, not surprising, considering visiting hours just ended about fifteen minutes ago.

She didn't bother to check and see if any of the nurses saw her push the door open or not, since she was on a first name bases with just about every single one that worked the coma ward. While she spent most of her time watching over Jonathan, Martha still made sure to check up on Lex.

A little taste of resentment had crept into Martha's mouth when she learnt that Lex was beginning to recover. That at the rate he was going they would be moving him to Metropolis Medical in just a couple of more days.

She didn't find it very appealing.

Martha had always believed she was above such pettiness and the fact that she wasn't was a major shock. She truly did wish Lex a speedy recovery, but she found it completely unfair that he was recovering from what should have been a lethal dose while her husband lay in a bed as little more then a vegetable.

Stepping inside Lex's room she let the door swing close behind her, allowing the pneumatic hinges to slow its descent. Martha didn't see the pair of smoldering brown eyes that bored into her back. She was so caught up in her own thoughts that she didn't notice the strong odor of sulfur, or smell the tobacco in the air.

Without turning on the lights Martha quietly made her way to Lex's bed. She was able to see the small changes in him, the improvements that meant he was getting stronger. Getting better.

Lex was Clark's friend, despite their recent troubles. Martha hoped the two of them could patch up their friendship, but after everything that has happened the last few years she wasn't sure if that was in Clark's best interest.

None of this would have mattered if Clark hadn't saved Lex in the first place. Of course that would have meant Clark letting Lex die and that was something Clark just couldn't do.

No matter what the cost to himself.

The one thing Lex possessed that frightened both Martha and Jonathon more then anything were his resources. With them, they were sure Lex would be able to uncover Clark's secret.

"I hear that you're getting better," Martha said quietly not wanting to disturb the somber quality of the atmosphere. "That you're almost strong enough for transfer to Metropolis Medical."

A soft click of a well oiled hinge alerted Martha to the presence of someone else in the room. The smell she had been ignoring without realizing finally broke through the fog clouding her brain. Somebody had been smoking in the room. The metallic grating of steel striking flint filled Martha's ears; she could almost imagine hearing the paper sizzle as it was put to the open flame.

Martha turned slowly to face the unknown person in the room with her. The orange amber flared silhouetting a small, dark haired girl's face in a harsh halo of angry orange light while she inhaled deeply. The chocolate brown eyes that glared at Martha were hard, too hard for such a young face, like she seen more of life's hardships then is possible for someone so young. She couldn't have been much more then seventeen years old. It was only because of her eyes that Martha credited her with a few more years.

She lowered her cigarette, flicking the spent ash on the floor. Without the light she just faded into the darkness. What little light filtered in through the partially opened blinds didn't come anywhere near her, as if it were afraid of being sullied by her. She brought the cigarette to her mouth and inhaled again.

"Smoking's not allowed in hospitals," Martha said neutrally. Despite her small size the older woman got the distinct impression the girl could snap her in two with little more effort then breaking a pencil. There was a quiet menace that hovered around the girl.

Her eyes seemed to sparkle with amusement. She lowered her cigarette a little, holding it about a foot and half away from her face as if the meaning of the universe could be ferreted from the cigarette. "It's pretty funny really," she said with a smirk.

Martha noted it never touched her eyes. "What is?" She asked unsure if she wanted to know the answer.

The girl glanced at Martha as if she had forgotten about her standing there. She shrugged indifferently, as if Martha's presence didn't matter to her. "Three years inside the state pen and I never even thought about having one of these. Five minutes outside those walls, with the world crashing down all around… I mean it's not like I had to worry one wit about Big Bertha and her posse of bitches. They all knew it too, Warden, guards, the other inmates. Just made them all jealous, try that much harder to break me.

"At least until they learnt I couldn't be broken. Then it was just leave the super freak alone. Thought that they knew what hard was. Thought they knew what pain was," she inhaled deeply as if breaking some type of trance.

Looking back at Martha, eyes a little softer now… Maybe? Martha wasn't sure, she said, "I only smoke when I'm concerned, worried about something."

"You're worried about Lex?" Martha wished she could take the surprise accusation out of her voice.

What little emotion had been displayed vanished, evaporated like spilt water in Death Valley. "If you had a brother lying in a coma you'd be concerned," she stated flatly.

Martha blinked several times at her statement. She knew Lex had a half brother, and a brother that died as an infant, but she had never heard of him having a sister. A sister that by her own words, had spent three years in prison and was contemptuous of its social hierarchy. "I didn't know Lex had a sister," Martha finally said after the protracted pause.

"Just got the news myself a few days ago," Faith answered as she flicked the ash from the end of her cigarette. "Doc's run all the test and got the confirmation this morning, lucky thing for Lex."

"Why?"

Faith inhaled taking a drag off her cigarette. Lowering it she said, "Blood transfusion. Course they only took three pints. Didn't believe me when I told them my body could make the shit quicker then they could drain it."

Again Martha felt as if she was missing a major point, sort of like leaving during the middle of a movie and coming back to discover a major plot twist had occurred and nobody was able to explain it without making it even more confusing. One thing she did know was if she had given even one pint of blood she would be taking it easy for the rest of the day, so either the girl was lying to her or there had to be more to this dark hair, dark eye beauty then met the eye.

With a negligent flick she sent the smoldering cigarette flying into the bathroom where Martha heard a hiss. Either the girl had let water run all over the bathroom floor or she had hit the toilet or sink. A lucky shot or uncanny skill.

"Mind if I ask you question?" Faith asked sounding almost lazy.

Martha shook her head as she said, "go right ahead."

"Two days I've been here and aside from nurses and a few attorneys you're the only person that's visited Lex. Didn't anybody in this town care about him?"

Martha frowned thoughtfully as she tried to figure out how to explain Lex to his sister. "Lex is a very complicated young man. He doesn't trust easily, but if you ever do gain his confidence, you'll always have it. The few people that call him friend, he'll risk life and limb to keep them safe. There were a few people in Smallville that would have visited Lex, but… Chloe's dead and nobody has seen Clark in five days."

Recognition flashed in Faith's eyes. "You're Martha Kent. I've heard some of the nurses talking about you. They say your husband's…" She stopped talking, her attention perking up.

Walking over to the window Faith bent a pair of the plastic slits and stared down at the ground. Martha was unnerved by the fact the girl didn't make a sound as she crossed the floor. Her step was eerily quiet.

Standing at the window, illuminated by the pale moonlight, Martha got her first good look at the girl. Her dark hair was raven black, and Martha was guessing by the clothes she wore her favorite color was black. Her black boots were military combat style and added at least two inches to her overall height, which meant she was only about five foot four inches to five feet five inches.

Her leather pants, which looked several sizes to small even for her trim, athletic body, were black as well. With how tightly they clung to her hips, they looked like a second skin. Martha didn't think it would be possible to wear even the skimpiest thong with pants so tight.

A heavy, black leather biker jacket gave her slim shoulders the appearance of more bulk then she actually possessed. It was open in the front revealing a tone abdomen. A glint of light off metal allowed Martha to pick out the small hoop piercing her navel. A blood red, spaghetti string halter top barely contained her cleavage. Her breast seemed ready to burst through the material.

For the first time Martha saw a genuine smile light the girls face. She looked incredibly young now. "She came after me." The words were so soft that Martha almost thought she imagined them. "I was sure she would, but…" The way she left the statement hanging there told Martha the girl had been anything but sure.

Martha took a step forward meaning to move around the bed and look out the window, but the younger woman must have sensed her and turned, the mask back in place and her hard eye glare pinning Martha to the spot. The intensity in her eyes lessened slightly, not enough for Martha to feel comfortable taking another step, but enough so she didn't fear for her life.

"I'm sorry about your family Mrs. Kent," Faith was surprised that she actually heard regret in her voice. "I'm sorry about the other girl as well, Chloe. Sorry I can't change it, but I promise Lionel will never harm another person."

With a quick stride Faith began to cross the room as silently as before. Summoning her courage Martha reached out, Faith twisted her head to glare at the hand. It stopped only a hairs breadth from actually touching her, but she had stopped as well.

For a moment Martha just looked at her. She wanted to know what the girl was planning on doing, but she had frightfully vivid idea. It was just one more insane thought on top of what was already there. After all Lionel Luther was being held in a maximum security prison awaiting sentencing.

"What's your name?" She asked instead.

Faith smirked at the question. She could read the woman easier then an open book. It was actually a little touching to have a complete stranger concerned about her. In today's world there were a lot of people who could fake the sentiment and mouth the platitudes with a fair amount of believability.

Most of Buffy's old Scooby group was like that. For awhile she believed Buffy herself was the worst of them all, only Buffy's problem went the other way. The tiny blonde tended to feel everything deeper then anyone else Faith has ever meet and when things got to be too much she went into an emotional overload. She would shut everything down and became a frigid bitch.

Faith smiled again, this time sadly. "Its better if you don't know," she said. She was out the door before Martha could do more then take a few tentative steps after her, but the door was already beginning to swing close.

Martha didn't think the girl was as fast as Clark, but she had been little more then a blur to her eyes. Martha blinked, at the display of superhuman speed.

In recent years the newspapers had been printing stories about the growing mutant phenomenon; humans born with super human powers. It gave her hope that Clark wouldn't have to be alone his entire life; that he would find other people who had grown up like he had. At the same time it brought her worst fears to light; the suspicion, the fear, the hatred, the bigotry that cropped up over the country. It wasn't paranoia yet, but Martha could imagine America headed down that road all too easily.

Taking a chance Martha went to the window and bent the plastic slats slightly to look out the glass. She looked up and down the road, but nobody was visible. After several minutes Martha was about to leave the window when she spotted a person crossing the paved parking lot across the street that was reserved for staff and faculty.

At first Martha thought the nondescript person worked at the hospital, but that thought evaporated when they headed away from the security door in the high chain linked fence.

With her curiosity peaked Martha watched the person as they stood there. Now that they were standing still Martha could tell the person was a woman. She couldn't tell much from her vantage point, her hair was blonde and pulled back in a functional braid, she didn't look all that tall, but Martha didn't know how tall the fence was.

How ever tall it was, wasn't tall enough as the girl cleared its height in a single bound. She landed on the sidewalk looking relaxed and composed as if what she had done was common place.

She stood there and Martha wondered if this was the "she" Lex's sister had mentioned. The blonde looked up at the window and Martha suddenly felt like a rabbit that knew it had been spotted by a hawk. Her first reaction was to duck back out of sight, but she managed to hold her ground.

The girl below her seemed to relax, a true smile lit her face and the area surrounding her seemed to brighten. Martha knew it was her imagination playing tricks on her, but she still felt the tension as it drained from between her shoulders.

The blonde pulled her attention back to the hospital ground floor. Her posture stiffened again, and Martha allowed her gaze to follow the youngster's until she spots Lex's sister emerging from Smallville General's front door.

She crossed the street to stand a few feet from the blonde. If words were exchanged Martha couldn't tell. After several long moments of staring at each other without moving so much as a finger, the pair physically relaxed and embraced with what looked like bone crushing force.

The door clinked open and Martha turned towards the sound. One of the nurses, a tall, black woman with narrow shoulders, slim hips, and feet just a little big for the rest of her body peered into the darkness. If Martha remembered correctly her name was Laisha.

She almost seemed startled at finding Martha in the room. "I wasn't sure if you'd be in here. Miss…" She frowned slightly giving her head a rueful shake. None of the staff knew the dark haired girl's last name. The few people to call her Miss Luther were stared down with open hostility, but the only name she gave for herself was Faith. Even the documentation she provided didn't list a last name. "Faith said you'd be here, but sometimes she says a lot things that seem like foolishness. Sometimes though, they turn out to be not so foolish as we first thought." Her gaze shifted slightly towards Lex.

"The blood transfusion?" Martha commented.

Laisha nodded as she said, "The strangest thing that. Not that Mr. Luther should have been with us at all. The poison should have killed him in minutes, if not seconds, but by the grace of god he lived, he was beginning to fade on us though, quicker then he had been… Then we began transfusing his blood with his sister's and immediately his vitals leveled off, began growing stronger."

"And you're sure it's because of the blood transfusion?" Martha asked as she peeked back out the window. Both Faith and the blonde were gone.

"Nothing that any of the doctors know about," Laisha said.

A sudden, suspicious thought trickled into Martha's head as she focused back on Laisha. Always before the nurses had been very strict about Lex's condition. While they let her know if he was holding steady or the like when she inquired they had never given her any personal information or details.

Until now.

"Laisha," Martha began slowly as she put careful thought into what she wanted to know. "What exactly is going on here?"

"There's some paperwork you need to sign at the nurses station. It's what I came in here to tell you."

"What kind of paperwork?" Martha asked cautiously.

Laisha exhaled slowly before she said, "Faith named you Lex's defacto guardian. If there should be an emergency and she isn't here or can't be reached you'll be responsible for making the decision." Martha felt like somebody had just punched her in the stomach and drove the air from her lungs. "She also made arrangements to pay for Jonathon's medical bills."

Martha felt floored. She stared at Laisha with eyes as wide as saucers as she floundered saying, "We can't, I can't accept. That's just…"

Laisha gripped Martha's shoulder with a strong, reassuring hand. "It's already done Martha. There is no accepting. Even if you argued with the child I no think you convince her otherwise. Her words, "Family has more money then the council. 'Bout time somebody used it to do a good deed without an ulterior motive." She laughed at that, sarcastic like and then she said, "Never thought I'd get to play the moral compass, the inmates must be running the asylum," and laughed again. This time she looked sad. No Martha, I don't thinking you be talking your way out of this."

Martha sighed softly. She knew Laisha was right. After spending a few minutes with Faith she could tell the raven haired girl wasn't the sort to back down once she reached a decision and made up her mind on a course of action. In a way it was very similar to Lex.


	5. Chap 4: The Man Comes Around pt 2

Chapter Four: The Man Comes Around – Part two

* * *

Jor-El could feel them, Krypton's betrayers; three of the royal four. The breakers of an alliance that had stretched back a hundred generations. The renegade General Zod; his cult of fanatical zealots and the abomination he had created, pushed Kryptonian society to the very brink of utter destruction in a war of bitter annihilation.

Zan and his most trusted advisors were quick to pounce upon the perceived weakness; terminating an alliance they now found burdensome. By taking advantage of the discord Zod had sown the Antarians were able to eliminate a superior race of beings whose technology far outstripped their own. In space or on their respective worlds they would have made a dangerous advisory, but one the people of Krypton would have been able to overcome with very little difficulty.

He could feel their presence within his temporary sanctuary. Zan, a puppet on the throne, an impudent boy trying to prove he was King. Rath, Zan's second in command and military advisor, a trained monkey who never formed an original thought. Vilandra, Zan's sister, Rath's wife, the seductive princess, the royal whore.

They felt muted, yet oddly enhanced as well. They were different enough to be a curiosity to Jor-El, different enough not to be destroyed in a moment of idle rage. Once he finished studying them, learning what made them different from what they had been; then he would be able to dispose of them at his leisure.

Unlike in space, or on their respective planets; on Earth the Antarians would be no match for a Kryptonian.

If only Zan's consort Ava were here…

--- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---

_Isobel and Michael are right_, Max thought as he moved deeper into the cave. It felt like the underground chamber hated him; was studying and dissecting him all at the same time.

He noticed it, but only in an abstract way.

The markings on the wall had his complete attention. They were extremely similar to the Antarian language he had learnt to read back in high school. The language of his alien heritage.

There were so many similarities the two could easily be confused for one another. If he didn't have such a keen knowledge of Antarian, it would have been simple to mistake these writings for it. The differences, subtle as they were, were as profound as the similarities.

His fingers hovered just above the script; something told him touching it would be a bad idea. _A very bad idea_.

"Don't touch it," Isobel warned in a small, pleading voice that brought Max's hand to halt.

He twisted around, enough to bring his sister into his field of vision. A question burning in his brown eyes.

"It's…" She faltered for a brief second, her mind quickly organizing her intuitive feelings. "Something, someone is in here with us. Watching us. A presence that doesn't like us being here. Can't you feel him."

Max nodded slowly before conceding, "I can feel… Something."

"Oooh," Michael breathed out ghostly. "Even if there is a presence down here, that's all it is." He brushed past Max, tapping the symbol several times as he went by. He stopped at the head of the stairs and looked back over his shoulder. "I'm not about to let Casper keep me, us, from getting to the bottom of this." Turning, he bounded down the uneven stone steps at a cocky pace, daring any presence to take umbrage with him being down here.

Brother and sister share a concerned glance with each other. Michael had always been rash and headstrong, but they believed he had mellowed a little in the past few years. "Maybe it wasn't as much as we thought," the look said.

Cautiously, they followed Michael deeper into the cave.

"Look at this," Michael said as the pair came into the central chamber. He was standing at a small alcove towards the back of the cave. "I think there's a chamber back here?"

Max nodded as he looked around the cavern. He ran his hand along the wall taking care not to touch the cave drawings.

"We should've brought Liz," Isobel commented as she stood near the base of the steps. "With her power of psychometry…"

"Not until we're sure it's safe." Max answered before Isobel could finish. He moved to Michael's side and examined the area. Liz had been through; he had put her through so much since he had come into her life and he wasn't about to expose her to anything else if he didn't have to. "There's a fissure here."

"You're right," Michael agreed, a small trace of envy touching his voice. His control had gotten a lot better in the last few years, but compared to Max and Isobel, even Liz, he was far below the curve. He held a significant edge on Kyle, but that was Kyle. He ran his fingers over the minute seam, bringing his right hand down from the upper corner. Without Max pointing it out he never would have seen the subtle crease.

Golden light exploded outward from the fissure. A wall of green energy intercepts it a bare instant before it struck Michael. The pair of energy waves burst in a scintillating cascade of sparks, the concussive force enough to hurl Michael the length of the chamber. His back hit the ground hard, expunging the oxygen from his lungs with a solid grunt, as his momentum carried him heels over head before he come to rest, lying flat on his back.

"Michael!" Isobel cried out as she darted toward him.

Michael groaned then coughed painfully. He winced as he clutched at his ribs. "That hurt," he rasped as he sat up.

Isobel helped him into a sitting position. "You're lucky you're not dead," she said angrily as she started checking him over.

Max stepped up, his face a humorless mask as he looked down at Michael. "Looks like Casper ain't so friendly anymore."

--- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---

The small bell gave a soft, musical twinkle as Martha pushed open the door to the Talon and entered the establishment with a bone wary stride. She did an adequate job of masking it to people who didn't know her, know of her troubles, but in a town like Smallville where everybody knew everyone on a first name basis and if your father didn't go to school with their father and live on the same tract of land for the past thirty years then you must be a stranger in these here parts.

Martha could feel the sympathy in everyone's eyes as they glanced at her, brief looks that quickly turned away. She was just as glad that nobody decided to come over and ask her, how Jonathan was holding up? If there had been any changes? If he was getting better? Recovering?

Still the conversations sounded as if they were muted from what she had heard when she opened the door. She didn't mind. Not really anyway. It wasn't like she was going to try and listen in to what was being said. Just because she was positive most of it had switched over to her and her troubles.

Coming from the hospital always left her feeling exhausted, more wore down then if she was running on four days with no sleep. Jonathan had always been so full of life, so active, so vital. He was always on the move, attending to one thing almost before the last was finished being seen to. It was one of the reasons she always loved to watch him while he rested; whether just taking his ease or while he was sleeping. Catching him in those rare unguarded moments when there weren't a thousand things that needed his immediate attention was a treasure to her far more precious then a vault full of gold.

Not now. Seeing Jonathan lying in that hospital bed, completely unresponsive, unaware of the world around him left her drained deep in her core. Watching him die a little each day was taking a devastating toll on her. With each day that passed she felt a piece of herself die as well. She wasn't about to give up hope though. Her family had been through so much recently, brushes with death even more dire then this.

They were fighters.

More importantly they were survivors. They would weather this storm just as they had all the others.

She wasn't sure how at the moment, but she knew they would.

Her brief visits with Lex were normally a bright spot in an otherwise abysmal day. Even though he was comatosed as well, his chances of recovery, slim as they had been, gave her a glimmer more hope for Jonathan to eventually pull through.

Tonight that was more so.

The enigmatic Faith had thrown her for a heck of a loop. It had left her dizzy with questions. Questions that didn't have any ready answers. The papers she signed gave her discretion over Lex's medical treatment; she could only thank God that Lex was now well on the road to making a full recovery.

Martha didn't begrudge the young man his good fortune. She knew Lex would do everything in his power to help Jonathan despite her husband's distaste of him. Whether it was from an obligation he felt because he was Clark friend, or because he was trying to accumulate all the good karma he could get his hands on, or simply because he was trying to put them in his debt… She didn't care. She would strike a deal with the devil himself if it meant having Jonathan by her side and deal with what needed to be dealt with when the time came.

Right now though she could really use a rich cup of coffee and something extra sugary to give her an energy boost; even if it was artificial and faded within a few moments.

Despite her initial reservations about the change of ownership she found herself liking the new proprietors. She had expected the Talon to undergo some drastic alterations, but Liz and Maria kept the coffee house virtually the same. There were some minor, cosmetic changes, but nothing that altered the atmosphere.

They were originally from Roswell, New Mexico, site of the supposed alien crash in the late nineteen forties. Or it could have been the fifties. Her own experience with alien life notwithstanding, Martha didn't pay much attention to extraterrestrial activity.

When she first met the six young adults she couldn't help but ask them if they thought it were true. They had all laughed or chuckled with varying degrees of humor, but there had been tightness around their eyes as if it were a forced laughter. She had recognized the look, she should, she saw it often enough on Clark or Jonathan's face when somebody made the unintentional query that struck just a little too close to home.

"Good evening Liz," Martha greeted the petite, raven haired young woman as she approached the counter.

Liz smiled as she placed a large mug of black, steaming hot coffee on the counter. "Hello Mrs. Kent."

"Martha," the older woman said with a friendly smile. Martha always asked Liz to call her by her first name. Liz ignored her, politely though, and continued to call her Mrs. Kent. Maria on the other hand had no problem addressing her by her first name.

"How is he doing?" Liz asked skillfully avoiding her request.

Martha was always touched by Liz's concern. It wasn't a false compassion either; the girl truly had a heart as big as Kansas. "The same," she answered taking her coffee. She took a small sip of the warm liquid and felt a bit of her strength return with the caffeine rush. Liz placed a glazed honey bun in front of Martha. "Lex is recovering," she added in a voice a little stronger for the coffee in her. She picked up the pastry and took a small bite. "Um, delicious."

"I'm glad you like it… I wish there was something more I could do," she said honestly.

Martha reached out and softly clasped Liz's hand on the counter. It was the first time she could remember touching the younger woman. The girl made a point of avoiding physical contact. For a moment her eyes became vague, distant, like some bright scintillating object far away had drawn her attention. "Thank you for the thought…"

Martha words seemed to bring Liz back from where she had gone. Gently but quite deliberately, she extracted her hand. "How much do I owe you?"

Liz's gaze settled on the older woman. With a steady, unwavering voice she said, "It's on the house."

"I couldn't…"

Liz gave, not just her head, but her entire body and empathic shake. "You can… and you will." She wanted to say more, to tell her Jonathan would be standing at her side the day Clark graduated high school.

Only she couldn't. Couldn't risk exposing them to more hunters. Just because the FBI had been dealt with didn't mean other people weren't on their trail. Sometimes there were fewer problems dealing with an entire government agency than contending with a lone gunman.

Martha could see from the intense look there would be no talking Liz around. "Thank you Liz."

"It's the least I can do," Liz answered.

Martha picked up her coffee and pastry and headed to her car. She got in, started it up, pulled out of the parking space, and began the long drive home. It wasn't until she pulled into her driveway that she realized she hadn't ordered either the coffee or the honey bun.

Her mind rationalized it. She had been going there every night since Jonathan… She's ordered the same thing every night for five nights in a row. Liz was a smart, attentive girl and probably had her order down pat.

It didn't occur to her until she entered the kitchen, after she placed her partially eaten honey bun on the counter, that she normally ordered a cinnamon roll. Tonight though she wanted something sweet.

Tonight Liz had given her the glazed honey born.

_Coincidence, or something else_? The question dangled in the back of her mind.

--- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---

As Martha was backing out of a parking space in front of the Talon, Liz spotted Dawn sitting by herself. A large book sitting on the small table in front of her. Liz thought it was advanced biology. From what she could tell Dawn had read at least a third of the book since she came in several hours ago.

A chill ran up her spine as she looked at Dawn. The young girl terrified her. The one time she had touched the golden haired brunette, she fainted from the kaleidoscope of images that whirled through her brain. There were so many, they came so fast… so furious, it was almost like looking at a blank page that contained everything, with all of it running together.

Oddly though, the objects she handled left no residue. There was no transfer of herself onto the object.

Unlike people such as Martha. Today she had been dying for a glazed honey bun. Liz had known that three days ago just from handling a used coffee cup. It didn't happen very often, not even ten percent of the time, but it still meant dozens, if not hundreds of visions each day. Normally it was trivial, or something that had already happened.

With Dawn though, nothing was ever there.

"Hi," Dawn said swiveling her head to look up at Liz as the smaller girl's approached. She had the feeling that Liz wanted to talk to her about something. Like somehow Liz knew something about her. _The key_… The thought bubbled in her head. At least Liz looked better than when they first meant the other day; she had passed out when she had brushed past her.

"Just checking to see if you need a refill?" Liz offered.

Dawn slipped the earplugs from her ears, but with the volume up on her iPod the strains of Savatage's "Agony and Ecstasy" could be heard clearly by both young women. Liz was a little surprised to hear the lightning quick guitar riffs, the harsh and raspy, yet slick sounding voice the small headphones emitted into the air.

"Thanks," Dawn said handing the mostly empty cup to Liz. The dregs were down at the bottom, stuff not even fit for a Fyarl demon. She took a look around the Talon and saw it was three quarters empty. Deciding she needed a break from the excessive studying, Dawn got up and followed Liz to the counter. She felt safe enough leaving her stuff unattended. Smallville had a crime rate that wasn't. "Kind of slow tonight," she commented dryly to start the conversation since it needed to start somewhere.

Liz shrugged slightly. "Not that I mind a night like this every now and then." She began filling a fresh mug with coffee as she spoke. "Don't think we'd stay in business very long if every night was this dead?" Liz turned around and placed the large mug on the counter. She nodded towards the table Dawn had been sitting at as the brunette picked up her cup of coffee. "Whatever you're studying looks intense."

Dawn glanced back at the book. She hadn't even noticed the size of it, or how much work she accomplished. After years of researching ultimate evil and whatever demon of the week happened to be menacing Sunnydale, studying for a high school placement test was a piece cake, or some other warm gooey pastry. "High school placement," she said turning back to face Liz. At the questioning look she elaborated by adding, "When you missed close to a year and a half of school, on an impromptu Eurotrip, because the town you grew up in collapsed into a sinkhole… Losing all of your educational records in the process, and you're on the verge of becoming one of those freaky, home schooled religious kids… Schools want you to take this huge test to decide where to place you." Dawn rattled off without thinking. Liz was simply a very easy person to talk to. She was there without being there, without being an intimidating presence.

"You planning on going to Smallville high?" Liz asked as Dawn picked up her coffee.

Dawn gave her head a tiny shake as she said, "Not really. I'm actually planning on England… Italy would be nice. Wouldn't mind spending the winter sun tanning on the Riviera."

--- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---

The waitress placed two cups of coffee on the table between the light and dark haired young women sitting across from each other. There was cream, sugar, and sweetener already on the table. Not that either girl seemed all that aware of them. They were barely aware of the solid built, red hair waitress. Glancing between the two teenagers, Linda couldn't imagine two more dissimilar girls if she tried.

One was dark of both eyes and hair; which was extremely thick and luxuriant falling in waves past her shoulders. She exuded dark sensuality and something very dangerous. She was the embodiment all of the midnight fantasies.

Her companion was a ray of pure sunlight. Blond hair like spun gold that perfectly accentuated her soft blue eyes. She had a petite, very delicate body; touched her too roughly and she would shatter like fine china. She was the girl you brought home to meet your parents.

For all their differences there was something disturbingly similar about them. An intensity they both shared. She had seen the same look among soldiers and cops and firefighters and EMTs, emergency room doctors. People forced to make life and death decisions on a moments notice. "Be anything else?" Linda asked chomping around a mouthful of watermelon flavored bubblegum.

Faith worked her jaw hard. It popped several times. She wanted a stiff drink more than she ever has in her life. Normally when she drank it was to have a good time; a party. Now she wanted to get drunk. Stinking drunk. The kind of drunk you spent a week and a half recovering from.

Then get up and do it all over again.

"Thank you, no!" Buffy answered forcefully her eyes never breaking contact with Faith's. The meaning behind her words was crystal clear. Go away now and don't come back until you've been summoned.

"You shouldn't've followed me," Faith said in a hard voice that strained to contain the torrent of the emotions raging in her. Buffy really came after her, something Faith had been reluctant to believe she would do. Despite their recent friendliness towards each other the younger girl still had a hard time reconciling the fact their relationship had moved beyond original slayer; The Chosen One and The Mistake.

The grin that slipped across Buffy's lips was a lopsided affair. "I happen to be funny like that when it comes to my friends. I like them out of prison, where visiting is so much easier and doesn't have to be scheduled between the hours of nine to five, Monday through Friday."

"This is all just one big joke to you?" Faith growled softly unable to keep the sense of betrayal out of her voice.

Buffy's face grew serious once more, her eyes hard enough to drive nails as she matched Faith's level gaze. In a voice that brooked no argument she said, "No, it's not." She held Faith's stare for a moment, then let out a deep sigh as some of the tension melted away. "Sometimes I just channel way too much Xander."

"Let's not go there," Faith said trying to burn that horrifying image out of her brain.

Her pale blue eyes scrunched up slightly as she tried to figure out what Faith meant. Then she thought better of it as she remembered it was Faith's mind she was contemplating the inner workings of. Instead she decided to talk about what had drawn both of them to Smallville. "What you're planning to do is wrong Faith…" Faith snorted, but didn't speak out against Buffy. "…vengeance isn't the answer. Besides, he's already been convicted and been sentenced to spend the rest of his life in prison."

"He'll still be alive," Faith whispered softly and Buffy wondered what the young girl must have had to endure growing up to still feel so much seething hatred. Before she could comment Faith spoke again saying, "Like the man says, sometimes vengeance is justice." Her voice had taken on a spit and gravel tone.

Buffy shook her head. "I never took you for being a stupid person… Lex is just using you!"

Faith snorted again before saying, "I got my own reasons for wanting that son of a bitch dead."

"You need to move past…"

"Don't try to shrink me," Faith snapped cutting Buffy off harshly. Her gaze demanded blood; wanted to paint the room crimson. "Some things can't be forgotten, will never be forgiven." The words came out between ragged breaths.

Buffy could tell Faith was barely holding on and that her confrontational approach was going to exacerbate the situation rather than resolve anything. Switching tactics Buffy reached across the table with her right hand and with a feather light touch grasped the fingers of Faith's left hand. Buffy gave the other woman's fingers a gentle, yet firm squeeze allowing Faith to draw on her strength.

The unexpected contact startled Faith, causing her to jerk upright. She could have broken away from Buffy's grasp easily; only she didn't – couldn't – move. Like a deer frozen in headlights she had know idea which way to jump and stood frozen gazing at the most intense light they would ever see.

"Talk to me," Buffy pleaded somberly. Her voice was a quiet hush only another slayer would be able to hear. "Let me help. Together we can overcome anything."

Faith pulled back inside herself. It was the only way she knew how to deal with her emotions. The hard exterior shell she used to keep everyone out. She was safe inside; nothing could hurt her. Letting the wall down, allowing people inside did nothing but bring her pain, misery, and betrayal. "You wanna know, think you can help me?" Her words were snide; her voice was bitterness tinted rage.

Buffy ignored the insulting quality of Faith's words. "What happened, Faith? What really happened that could make you hate this man so much?"

Faith wanted to pull her hand away, wanted to run as far, as fast as she could. She eyed the door through slanted eyes; only a part of her wanted to open up, wanted to talk, wanted to tell Buffy everything. They were feelings Faith wasn't used to dealing with. Feelings she hasn't dealt with in so long she had forgotten they even existed.

Hostility, like normal, was her response.

"I was five when my mother died, was murdered… Taken from me," she corrected bitterly. "I've got no clue why I wasn't killed, maybe they just couldn't bring themselves to snuff out a kid, maybe Luther told them not to. I wounded up with my aunt, my mom's older sister, and her brood, since no one knew who my father had been. I lived there for two years, wasn't bad… Least it wasn't until Patrick decided I was going to be his personal fuck toy." A predatory smile split for lips. "Cut him something good, course nobody believed me. Spent more 'en three years in juvi before bouncing around the foster care system. Going from one family to the next, each one just a little worse 'en the one before. People that made my uncle look like the pope.

"That was before the Charrins took me in. More Christian bible thumpers you'd never meet, but they didn't preached their gospel to me. They weren't interested in converting me just helping me get my life back on track. They'd done it with a bunch of kids before… near a dozen, but I was the last. Spent almost a year with them. A drunk driver ended that though. Spent more 'nother two and half years on the streets, surviving how I could, stealing what I needed… What I wanted. Wasn't until my watcher, a dried up old bag, a fractionally smaller bitch than Post, showed up… Theresa Sillshed, told me that I was a potential slayer.

"Didn't really believe any of her spiel, not until my predecessor bought it and I got that big old boost of power. Didn't care though, I was off the streets, didn't have to worry about someone trying to cut my throat… Or worse, it's all I cared about. Couldn't beat three squares a day, a roof over my head, and the first real bed to sleep on in years. And all I had to do was train from sunup to sundown… Compared to what I had it was like stepping into the lap of luxury."

Faith stopped and took a breath, not remembering a fraction of what she said. She extracted her hand from Buffy's as if she suddenly found the contact scalding. Grabbing her cigarettes and lighter off the table she pushed the chair back, it's scraped loudly across the floor as she stood up.

Buffy began to follow suit, but Faith's glare pinned the blond before she could do more than gather herself. "Gonna follow me to the bathroom B?" Faith inquired scornfully. "Join me for a smoke? Didn't think so," she finished catching Buffy's brief expression of disgust. Removing her leather jacket she dropped it unceremoniously over the back of her chair. "Just in case you're afraid I'll slip out the window…" She pointed at a door towards the back of the building. "… Bathrooms over there, make sure you don't take your eye off of it 'cause I just might sneak out a window or something."

Buffy settled back in her chair as she watched the younger girl stalk to the bathroom. It was a predatory walk; a big cat stalking prey. The tiny blonde had wanted her sister slayer to open up to her, but now that Faith had she had no idea what to do.

That Faith would have problems, even major ones, Buffy had expected. Everybody had them. What Buffy hadn't expect was the severity. She could empathize with how Faith felt; her blinding anger at the man who had forced her to endure such a horrific childhood.

Everything Faith told her left Buffy feeling overwhelmed, with little… With no idea as to what she should do. Her two semesters of college psychology classes had done nothing to prepare her for this.

A couple of minutes passed as Buffy began to formulate a plan that would help Faith deal with her problems. Unfortunately she was drawing a blank.

Buffy wondered if she should go and check on Faith but she was having a cigarette. Plus she had left her beloved coat out here. There was no way Faith would leave her heavy black motorcycle jacket behind.

A young girl appeared next to the table as if summoned by magic. Her dark red hair was cropped short and spiked upwards in a mess. A lot of blonde highlights had been frosted into her hair, or maybe the red hair had been streaked into the blond. Buffy couldn't tell for certain. She was no older than Dawn, a few years younger actually. Buffy constantly ignore the fact that her little sister was growing up on her. Buffy would've kept her frozen at fourteen for the rest of her life if she could.

The girl was tall, but from Buffy's perspective everybody was tall. She was definitely going to be a heartbreaker when she grew up. Right now she was more cute and adorable; not hot, sizzling, or smoking but Buffy could definitely see the potential there. Plus she seemed to have this bubbling exuberance, like she was bouncing on her toes without moving. Like most of the people in Hicksville; the girl's assemble was dated, once again confirming Buffy's original assessment that this was the back end of forever. The place fashion retired to, just before expiring.

"Can I help you?" Buffy finally asked in an icy voice. She desperately wanted this girl to go away so she could go back to wondering… worrying… about how she couldn't help Faith.

The girl seemed unsure. Buffy could see her jaw working silently. Buffy sighed inwardly and would have cast her eyes heavenward if the action wasn't so rude. "Whatever it is just go ahead and say it."

"Can I sit?" She asked and Buffy nodded her acquiesce. She almost told the girl to get another chair when she sat in Faith's unoccupied seat, but managed to hold her tongue. The girl was a bundle of nervous energy trying to gather her courage. "How long… When did you first know?"

Now Buffy understood; the girl was one of the new slayers called when Willow undid whatever had been done to keep the potential slayers from inheriting their power. She felt a little stab of jealousy roil in her gut as another girl had a stronger talent for sensing the supernatural than she did. She was barely able to sense Faith or Spike or Angel when they were around, and unless a fledgling was digging its way out to the ground she wouldn't have been able to pick a newbie out of the crowd. For that she needed to rely upon a keen eye, years of experience, and her intuition.

Giles had explained it to her once, when Faith arrived in Sunnydale the first time; after Faith had pointed out every vampire in the Bronze one night.

Blindfolded.

According to Giles it was because Faith, despite appearances to the contrary, had a very ordered mind. On the other hand Buffy, to put it mildly, was a bit of a scatter brain whose mind constantly hopped from one topic to another.

Still Buffy couldn't help the, "When I learnt," comment that jumped out of her mouth.

The girl sighed heavily at Buffy's flippancy. "That you were different?" She clarified in a firm voice.

Buffy couldn't help but smile at the girl's attitude. "Since I was only a little older than you," Buffy answered sincerely. She would have to give Giles a call, have him send out one of his new brood of watchers to start training the girl, at least let her know what the what was. There were more than enough slayers now to handle any emergency that cropped up.

The girl looked at Buffy skeptically. "You're not much older than me now."

Buffy's grin turned wolfish. She had been getting that reaction a lot recently. She was being carded constantly when she ordered a drink. "I'll turn twenty-three in under eight months."

"Wow," the teen breathed out in astonishment. "Don't look more than seventeen, eighteen tops."

"Product of living well," Buffy replied cryptically.

The girl smiled faintly, she was more relaxed then when she first came over. "I hope I didn't bother you?"

"Of course not," Buffy said as the girl stood.

"It's just… I've just never met anybody like me before, not openly anyways. It's just nice to know I'm not alone."

"There are more of us out there than you think, and more of us are popping out of the woodwork every single day," Buffy told the girl with pride. Then she turned even more serious as she cautioned the girl saying, "Still, it's dangerous out there for us, especially by ourselves. Lots of things that would just love to put one of us in the ground… and they don't care how they do it."

The girl swallowed hard; nervous and afraid again, but Buffy felt she had to do it. The life of a slayer was a hard life. The tiny slayer held out her hand, "I'm Buffy by the way."

"Cecily," the girl said taking Buffy's hand.

Buffy's smile froze. The name conjured open a wash of painful memories. A room full of dead college students, Anya excepting D'Hoffryn's deal to bring them back. Cecily, who Buffy knew better as Helfrek, being incinerated before her and Anya's and Xander's eyes. Anya died months later in the battle for the hellmouth. The same battle that Amanda died in. A whole host of new slayers lost their lives that day. "I knew a Cecily once," she said solemnly.

The girl knew instinctively that that subject wasn't open for discussion. "It was nice meeting you Buffy. I hope you set things right with your girl…"

"My girl," Buffy echoed soundlessly.

"…Be a shame if you let a catch like her get a way." Cecily looked Buffy over appreciatively, "Of course you sure ain't no slouch when it comes to extreme hotness." Cecily turned and sashayed away from Buffy confidently.

Buffy looked after the girl, her expression was clearly written in confusion. "My girl," she murmured. Understanding dawned in her with the suddenness of a lightning strike. "She's not… I'm not," she called after Cecily, "not that there's anything wrong with being that…" She shook her head dismissively in said, "Whatever?"

Clarity flashed in Buffy's eyes as she breathed out a single word, "Faith." She bolted out of her chair, knocking it over backwards as she rushed toward the bathroom. She burst through the door, almost ripping the obstruction off its hinges. Buffy knew what she was going to find.

Nothing.

And that was exactly what she found after kicking in each of the three stall doors.

Nothing.

The small window was open. It was more than big enough for Faith to have fit through.

"Stupid," she cursed herself spinning in the small space. The middle mirror brought Buffy to a stop. On the reflective surface, written in soap, was Faith's simple, yet elegant, apology.

Sorry B.

Buffy felt her temper rise. Felt it boil over as it got the better of her in a flash. With a scream that contain all of her pent up fury about her inability to help Faith, to reach her, to shatter that damn wall the younger girl had spent years building, Buffy lashed out at blurring speed. The mirror shattered before her fist ever connected with the glass surface. Splintered glass exploded outward and jagged slivers rained down around her. A four and a half foot circle in the wall caved inwards, crack's spider webbed over the length and breadth of the wall.

A single deep breath and Buffy managed to rein in her anger. The damage took her by surprise. Another slow exhale and the slayer lowered her hand. A couple small pieces of plaster dropped to the floor. Her hand was unmarked otherwise.

The door to the restroom banged open. A crowd of people; patrons, staff, and one very pissed off owner conjugated in the doorway. Voices surged from a dozen throats at once.

Buffy could have a separated each one of them but wasn't really in the mood. She reached down and removed the cell phone clipped to her hip pocket. Raising her left hand, index finger held up, the crowd fell silent. With practiced ease she punched the speed code.

She whistled some nameless piece of music as she folded her left arm across her chest and she rested her right elbow across the back of her hand. After one ring her foot began to tap out a matching rhythm to what she was whistling. By the second ring her eyes had rolled upward ever so slightly and she began wondering…

"Hi, Giles…" she said suddenly in an overly bright voice. "No, no found Faith. Just finished having a good talk, lots of insights gained… No she just stepped out to have a smoke, you know how these new smoking bans are… she's completely calm, totally rational… She so did not escape. I can honestly say I know exactly where Faith is at this moment…"_ On her way to kill Lionel Luther_ "… interesting as all this is Giles the reason I really called was this slayer emergency…" _Because the Watcher Council won't dole out one red cent if it wasn't one._ "I was just attacked by a demon, in the bathroom of this diner…" _Which means I should be able to get those shoes I saw on sale the other day, because me without those shoes is a real emergency. And there was this jacket that went with those shoes…_ "Of course I don't know what kind of demon it was, you know me. Stake through the heart, maybe a beheading in the demon goes bye, bye, bye… At least you can't tell the difference between the slime it left and what was already here… Giles public restroom… Speaking of which, there was a teeny, weensy bit of structural damage… You do remember what a fight is, takes place between two people of comparatively equal strength, speed, and skill… I know it's been a while since you've actually stayed conscious through one… Maybe you should learn to duck, it's this thing that us pretty young girls do in order to remain pretty and keep all of our teeth and since you're so concerned I'll assuage your guilt…"_ I can't believe I used assuage properly. England, that damn British language has corrupted my proper English dialect._ "… I'm fine Giles, but the wall, like you, doesn't possess the ability to avoid a punch… You should be happy, just think of it this way, paying to have the wall fixed… Paying to have my teeth fixed… My teeth would cost way more money to fix than this wall…"


	6. Chap 4: The Man Comes Around pt 3

Chapter Four: The Man Comes Around – Part Three

Dawn laughed, an amused chuckle as she listened to Maria. "Itching powder?" She repeated dubiously. There was something a little off with Maria's story, like it had been edited for her listening pleasure.

She didn't mind, she wasn't being exactly honest herself. Like when she told Maria about Buffy and Spike's first meeting at parent teacher night. Dawn told Maria that Spike had been the leader of a gang on PCB who attacked the school and Buffy and their mom had managed to drive Spike and his gang off. The truth, just not all of the truth.

"Don't ask me how he did it, but somehow Michael managed to weld the inside of Kyle's locker shut." Maria never tired of telling that story, even if everyone already knew it by heart and was sick of listening to her retell it, not that she told it all that often. And the looks Kyle gave her were downright venomous every time she brought the incident up.

Maria could feel Liz's eyes on her back and knew the reason why. Knew she was shooting just a little too close to the truth, things they weren't supposed to talk about with outsiders.

Only Dawn's stories were even more outlandish then her own. Small town political corruption concerning a cannibalistic, power hungry Mayor. A secret military installation run by a mad scientist that indulged in Nazi like experiments. A trio of geeks, who wanted to rule the world through super hot sex-bots.

Then there was the most convoluted story about how Buffy met her last boyfriend, Spike, when he used to be the leader of a gang on PCB who attacked and vandalized Sunnydale High School on Parent Teacher night. How, after years of intense antagonism, the pair had come together for an intense, fiery and tumultuous affair that didn't end until Spike's death when Sunnydale collapsed into a massive sinkhole.

Maria didn't believe ninety percent of what Dawn told her, but she said it without the slightest trace of guile, it was next to impossible not to believe her.

Liz wasn't quite sure what to make of Dawn and Maria. While Maria was a very outgoing person and often had people eating out of her hand within minutes; at least that was what she had been like before she fell into the Special Unit's merciless hands. When they rescued her it was like they had saved a completely different person, at times she was extremely sullen and withdrawn. Other times she was almost her old self.

Like now.

Talking with Dawn, swapping one tall tale with another, Maria was more animated then anytime Liz had seen her in the last three years. The only problem, Maria's tall tales were painstakingly embellishments of the truth. From the time when a single drink of liquor had Max so drunk that his inhibitions had absolutely vanished and he went around town popping street lamps, using his powers to graffiti "Max loves Liz forever", in a big heart with an arrow slanting through it on the wall of her rooftop balcony. Then there had been their little Las Vegas weekend.

For each tale Maria told, Dawn had one. Like the time the entire female population of Sunnydale had developed an insatiable crush on Xander, one of Buffy's friends. Another time when the majority of adults had begun acting like teenagers because the shipment of Band Candy had been accidentally laced with an experimental drug.

Like with Maria's stories Dawn's had a sense of truthful fabrication. Lies, but not where she expected to hear them.

Liz found it a little eerie listening to somebody like Dawn. Despite everything she said, despite all Liz saw in her vision, Dawn remained the picture of innocence. It was like she didn't understand the implications while understanding them implicitly. She wasn't naive, just determined to find the good, the positive.

It was startling to find that trait in someone as old as Dawn. Liz discovered some time ago that as children grow older they began to see, to understand the world they lived in and slowly lost their childish innocence and grew into adulthood.

Dawn was the complete opposite of what Liz always saw; she stood on the cusp of adulthood, if she hadn't already passed into it. She understood people and the world, but didn't allow that to alter how she viewed it or the people who inhabited it.

"Let me guess," Dawn said with a knowing smirk tinting her blue eyes, "Kyle had no clue?"

"None," Maria answered with a matching grin. "And now their like best friends."

Dawn shook her head with disbelief, "What is it about men?"

"How can they be at each other's throats one day and best pals the next?"

"Pretty much," Dawn agreed with a waifish giggle. Maria reminded Dawn of Xander, a little bit, enough for her to feel comfortable talking with the older girl. She didn't like lying to Maria, but it was a necessity. Dawn doubted that Maria would believe the truth if she told it; Mystical Keys made human, vampire heroes, rogue slayers, Powers bent on dominating…

Enslaving…

Annihilating…

…The human race, all depending on what day of the week it was. Evil law firms full of lawyers who have sold away their souls. Hundreds, if not thousands, maybe even millions—nobody knew how many slayers had been released—of girls destined to save the world.

Well, maybe the law firm, but everyone knew lawyers were nothing but soulless ghouls anyways, so that one wouldn't really come as that big of a surprise.

Dawn shifted her gaze slightly to glance at Liz, unlike Maria the dark haired girl let the conversation flow around her, she didn't try to force it, and only made a few innocuous comments every so often.

At first Dawn had thought Liz was a lot like Willow, she was smart like the redhead, but that was about where the similarities ended. Liz was more Giles' smart, a sort of intense all around knowledge, just not about the demon stuff. She exuded a smothering sort of protectiveness that put her in mind of Tara but without being a picture of feminine gentleness. After several minutes of trying to pigeonhole Liz into somebody else's mold Dawn finally stopped. Liz was her own person. Anything else was a disservice to Liz.

"It's got to be encoded in their genetics," Maria said. "Nothing else can explain it?"

"Or," Liz said. She spun her heavy mug around, slipped a pair of delicate fingers between the curved handle, and lifted the cup. "It could be that when men fight they get everything out in the open, unlike us girls, who keep everything inside, festering, manipulating, back stabbing."

Dawn and Maria stared at Liz, eyes wide with concerned horror, as Liz took a drink of her cinnamon flavored coffee. Liz felt their eyes on her and looked up, her gaze shifting between the pair. "What?"

"Total—"

Dawn's cell phone went off, a power rhythm that caused Maria to blanch. "What?" Dawn asked as she grabbed her phone, glancing at the display screen.

"N'Sync," Maria mouthed in disgust.

"It came with the phone," Dawn said quickly as she opened the phone bringing a quick end to the music. "Hey Buff," she greeted her older sister as she got up.

"Hey," Buffy said back.

Dawn moved a few feet away from Liz and Maria, giving herself a sense of privacy. "How'd it go?"

"Not good," Buffy answered. "We talked for a while… Things started off so good, well not really good, but we talked, something new for us… Then she ditched me."

"Ditched you?"

"Can you believe it, she actually convinced me that I was getting through to her? Of course I wanted to believe I was getting through, so… Not much of a stretch there."

Over the phone Dawn heard the sounds of traffic— blaring horns, squealing tires, a few times she'd swear she heard an overly boisterous voice cursing a stupid blonde, but wasn't sure because it faded away so quickly. Cautiously, even though Buffy wasn't present, Dawn asked, "Where are you?"

"Going after Faith."

The deflection was so obvious, so typical of Buffy, that Dawn ground her teeth to keep herself from raging at her older sister. Buffy tried her best to keep Dawn from worrying, but she wasn't a terribly good liar, and normally just frightened her sister more then if she had told her the truth to begin with. "First of all, you don't even know where she's—"

"There's only one place she'll go now that she knows I'm here," Buffy answered cutting Dawn off.

"It's ten O'clock," Dawn countered, "I'm pretty sure visiting hours ended awhile ago."

"Do you really think fifty foot walls and electrified fences will keep either of us out?"

Dawn knew the question was rhetorical. If a slayer really wanted in somewhere, there wasn't a whole lot anyone could do to keep her out. She exhaled softly wondering how late she was going to be up tonight. She never slept well when Buffy was out patrolling. There was no reason why tonight would be any different. "How are you going to get there? Not even you can run all the way to Metropolis Prison."

"Well, there was this really cute guy at the diner and he had this really cool, muscle, car—"

Dawn was almost able to see the air quotes as Buffy put extra emphasis on the word, muscle. "So he just offered to give you a ride?" She inquired sarcastically.

"Not exactly," Buffy replied. Her voice sounded so sweet; too sweet to have ever done anything wrong. "But I'm sure once I let him out of the trunk and untie him he'll be more then understanding."

Dawn sat down hard, a blank expression wrapped around her face. Numbly she clicked her phone close effectively ending the conversation.

Liz and Maria glanced at each other, Maria nodded as if the two shared some kind of silent communication. "Dawn?" Maria got up from their table, the chair legs scraping across the floor.

Reaching out to Dawn, Liz's hand came up short as memories of the vision Dawn induced surged. The last thing she wanted was to experience that mind numbing vision again, not that she would, but it was a chance she wasn't willing to take.

That was a problem Maria didn't have. "Is everything all right?" She asked squatting down next to Dawn, wrapping her long fingers around Dawn's hand.

Dawn's eyes refocused, as her gaze settled on Maria. "I'm fine."

"Was that Buffy?" Liz asked. Her voice was like a wind whispering through the reeds.

"Yeah," Dawn answered. Her voice sounded dead to her own ears.

"Is she coming to get you?"

Dawn's gaze shifted to Liz and she nodded.

"When?" Maria questioned, concerned for Dawn's state of mind.

"Five to fifteen?" Dawn looked up with questions filling her eyes. "What's the Federal statute for kidnapping?"

* * *

Peter pulled open the screen door and let himself into the kitchen. He still felt a little awkward entering the main house without announcing himself, but he was no longer knocking and waiting to be let in like the first few days. Mr. Kent had taken him aside after the second day and made it quite clear if he knocked again he'd spend the next week mucking out the stables, not that he didn't do some of that anyway. Peter made sure to look properly chastised even though he was pretty sure Mr. Kent had only been joking. At least he assumed the glint in his grey eyes and half smirk cutting a curved line across Mr. Kent's sun darkened and weather beaten face were signs of amusement. He wasn't positive because he had only known the man for a couple of days to that point and only a few more after it.

Mrs. Kent had stepped in at that point and admonished her husband, telling him it was sweet when a young man showed manners and that maybe he could learn a thing or two from Benjamin. It was all said in such a playful manner, with a note of mock sternness.

At the time Peter had felt like an intruder bearing witness to such a warm and tender moment. The only thing he had wanted to do at the time was back out of the room as discreetly as possible, but his luck was running true to form and they had noticed him.

Peter hated lying to the Kents, especially after they had been kind enough to give him a job and put a roof over his head. With Harry knowing his identity he continued to expect his name and face, as well as his alter ego, not to mention his "crime" to be plastered all over the papers.

Only it never materialized.

There was no reason why it hadn't. No good reason he could think of. Unless Harry was planning on coming at him personally. Peter wouldn't put it past him, with his temper on him, raw and blistering as it were.

The longer Peter went without hearing something the deeper the hooks felt buried under his skin, scraping along his spine. He was constantly on edge.

Waiting. Waiting.

Peter knew the hammer was going to fall, eventually. He wished it would happen already. Ever since that genetically engineered spider bit him, waiting grated on his nerves.

Stepping into the kitchen, allowing the screen door to slap close behind him, Peter couldn't help but be amazed by the warmth he felt envelope him. The only place that had ever been home to him was the squat little two story he had grown up in; raised by his Uncle Ben and Aunt May. The Kent's farmhouse possessed that same feeling, but while it was the same, it was also completely different. There were the same types of handcrafted odds and ends, little knick-knacks, from a dozen different eras, lining the shelves.

Still, it was nice to feel the gentle love that imbued the entire building wash over him. All of it was right, all of it belonged, but it all reminded him that this wasn't his home.

Martha sat at the kitchen table with her back toward him, hunched over slightly with pen in hand as she went over some bills. She was a strong woman, and had so much in common with the strongest woman he has ever known, Aunt May. They had both been through so much recently; Uncle Ben's senseless murder, Mr. Kent's coma, Clark's disappearance.

So much to endure in such a short time.

At least with Uncle Ben he had been able to act, double edge sword that that was, chasing down a car jacking, stick up man was a damn sight easier then a culprit who struck unseen, from within the body rather then without. He wished he knew how to fight a coma, all his powers meant nothing against the ravages time inflicted on the human body.

He was as helpless as the doctors, more so.

Martha gave a start when she heard the screen door bang close, but she was able to mask the motion as she looked back over her shoulder. She could feel the relief flush her face as she spotted Ben standing just inside the doorway. "Ben," she said, her voice sounding a little flustered. "I didn't realize…" Her voice trailed off. She hadn't heard him enter, which wasn't that unusual.

Ben was the quietest person she has ever been around. Spots on the floor that normally creaked with other people, either didn't realize Ben stepped on them, or he simply avoided the spot. That wasn't what made Ben so quiet. When he was in the room, his presence didn't dominate the atmosphere. He was the complete opposite of most people she knew. Both Lionel and Lex could take over a room simply by walking in.

Much as she hated to admit, even Clark could do that.

Ben was just so unassuming that you hardly ever knew he was in the room. If you did know he was in the room you would be just as apt to forget him.

Peter shrugged at the comment. It wasn't the first time he took somebody by surprise without trying. No matter how much he might wish otherwise, at times, his powers were as much a part of him as his brown hair and dark eyes. The spider bite had re-written his genetic code, imbuing him with a host of powers, among them was his perpetual sneakiness. "Sorry about that?" His apology sounded lame to his own ears. Deciding that dwelling on the subject wasn't going to accomplish anything Peter moved right into what he had come up to the house for.

"Tomorrow I was going to Metropolis, run a few errands I've been putting off and just wanted to check, see if there was anything you needed?" It was the truth, just not the whole truth.

For the longest time he had been ignoring his responsibilities, first when he had subconsciously denied his powers, now because he put himself as far from temptation as possible. The events that led up to and directly followed his final confrontation with the brilliant Otto Octavius had left him drained, far more then he had ever felt before.

Harry hated him, with reason even if not the ones Harry thought. He believed Peter—Spider-Man—had killed his father, Norman—The Green Goblin—not that Harry knew his father was the psychotic super villain. That was one secret Peter was determined to take to the grave with him. Still, if he didn't figure out something to tell Harry about Norman's last day, Peter knew he would never know peace.

Mary Jane had married John Jameson. A part of him was glad, she deserved a normal life, something he, as Spider-Man, would never be able to give her. He hated Jameson for it and envied him because of it.

His time on the Kent's farm had brought him a measure of peace, a peace he never would have found if he had stayed in New York.

Martha shook her head, a subtle movement, as she said, "Not that I can think of." She paused, a thought taking form in her head. "How are you getting to the city?"

"Roy's going to see his sister. He said he could drop me off downtown, and most of the places I'm going will be on the bus line. The five fifteen runs right past Smallville." His explanation was sound, it even made sense so long as no one knew he was Spider-Man.

"That sounds like quite a lot of running around to do," She said with sympathy. "Why don't you use the truck. At least this way you won't have to wait on any one, and you'll get to have a little more time to yourself?"

The offer was generous, more so then he had thought possible before meeting the Kents. Having to refuse made him uncomfortable, like going to a doctor and being pretty sure nothing was wrong. "Nice as that would be Mrs. Kent I'm afraid I have to decline."

"Nonsense," Martha said in a voice that sounded like the discussion was over with that single word.

"Really Mrs. Kent, much as I would love to take the truck, I can't." With a hint of disgruntle shame lacing his voice, Peter added, "I've never got my license."

"Oh."

"Living in the city it never mattered, with buses and subways, and Taxis." He didn't bother to add that he was able to web-sling places faster then most people could drive or that for the most part the only times he took any form of public transportation was when he hitched a ride on the roof of a vehicle heading his direction. With his limited funds, he certainly hadn't been able to afford riding them in the fashion intended by the people who designed them.

The short time he had his scooter had been, an experience he wasn't soon to forget. He had never bothered to find out if he needed a license or not. Nobody ever bothered him about riding it all over New York, which considering his driving was rather surprising.

Martha nodded, considering. She looked back up at him determination in her eyes. "Well, we'll just have to see what Roy can do about that?"

* * *

"So you decided to bring her home?" Kyle asked from his place in the back hall as he looked into the front room, the plush sofa, was printed with a soft, Mediterranean blue floral pattern upholstery. He thought the couch looked girly before, but unlike Michael, he accepted it without comment.

Now, with the waif, Dawn, sleeping on it, it was incredibly girly, but in an extremely good way. He didn't mind seeing a new face, or that Liz and Maria had made a new friend; as far as he was concerned, since they left Roswell, their little group had become insular. Not that he disagreed with the approach, when there were as many people after their hides you did what was necessary to keep yourselves safe.

Maria had explained the situation, tried to explain actually. Kyle had caught words like; sister, friend, kidnapping, prison, father. It hadn't made a lot of sense to him. He took it in stride though, his years following the teachings of Buddha had given him that. Trying to follow, it wasn't always easy and sometimes he didn't succeed, but he always tried.

"What else were we suppose to do?" Maria asked. The strain of keeping the irritation out of her voice was very evident. Even though both Kyle and her often wanted to accomplish the same thing, had the same objective, they seldom saw things eye to eye. "Just leave her?"

"Of course not," Kyle said turning back to face Maria. He could feel Liz next to him, he knew there was something else… Something big. He was still close to Liz, as close as they had been in high school, and could still read her as if they were still in school. "I simple heads up would've been appreciated is all I'm saying." He shifted his gaze between the two best friends. "And I'm pretty sure theirs a trio of pod people who'd appreciate one."

"If you had stayed at work instead of coming home two hours early," Maria began snidely.

Kyle's smile, his little half grin that danced in his eyes, never wavered as he once again concentrated on Maria. "Chemical spill had the execs clearing out all but essential personal."

"Chemical spill?"

"What type of Chemical?" Liz asked as she stepped away from the wall. Her dark eyes held a thousand questions and only a fraction of the answers, more like wild speculation, but none to her questions.

Kyle shrugged at the question as he said, "They weren't exactly handing out brochures."

Headlights splash through the half open curtain covering the window beside the heavy oak door. For a brief moment the foyer was bathed in a harsh light that quickly swept past leaving the room in soft darkness once more.

"Speaking of which," Kyle sounded extremely pleased with himself, a smug little smile curved his lips upward.

"Somebody should get the front light," Maria said pointedly while she glanced at the panel of switches lining the wall.

Kyle felt Liz's eyes on him, urging him. He rolled his eyes, tilted his head back, and looked skyward. "All right," he groaned softly. "You two can shut up now."

"Remember, just turn on the lights," Liz coaxed gently. Kyle had a lot of potential, he had shown glimpses and flashes at times, when he was under a great deal of stress, but most of the time he was reluctant to embrace his powers no matter how much he preached Buddha and acceptance.

"Not like last time," Maria mumbled.

Shooting Maria a scornful look, Kyle then focused his attention on the row of switches, and resolutely ignored her after that. Everything except for the light switches just faded away, didn't disappear, but rather seen through a piece of flimsy, smoke filled transparent plastic. He was aware of everything, but it was nothing more then background static. The switch plate loomed large in his mind's eye. A wave rushed through him, a sense of vertigo, standing too fast and all the blood rushed away from his brain. A thin tendril of his mind reached out and touched the plate, tentatively caressed the small piece of plastic. With the gentlest of touches he flicked the switch up. Blackness enveloped them with the swiftness of a summer storm.

"That's im—"

"Not a word," Kyle rasped as he ground his teeth.

"… different," Maria finished.

"What the hell happened?" Kyle demanded. Confusion laced the exasperation that filled his voice. He knew he flicked the switch, the outside light should have come on, but it hadn't, but it should have, and he didn't understand why. He was beginning to think Liz and the others were right, that he was afraid of the power, that it somehow de-humanized him.

"We'll figure it out," Liz assured him. He could hear the sympathy in her voice. She was the only one who understood what he was going through.

Max, Isobel, and Michael had all been born, hatched, as he liked to kid them, with their power. For them, their superhuman abilities, the powers that set them apart, above, ordinary people were as much apart of them as their eyes, their hand, even a big toe. For them acceptance of their powers came with awareness of them, learning their letters and numbers came later, with school.

He didn't know how Liz has able to accept her powers so easily, why she was so comfortable with them, whole he couldn't even flip a light switch. She had Max, with his unconditional love and acceptance of her. Kyle doubted if it was as simple as that, but knowing that there was at least one person who was going to care about you, love and cherish you no matter what happened.

It had to be a huge weight off her shoulders. A weight he wished was gone from his.

_Maybe it is that simple_? Kyle mused silently as the lights, inside as well as out, came back on. The light didn't look the same as it had. It was brighter, had a purer sheen. Liz hadn't corrected whatever it was he did, obviously she was leaving that for him, but had instead lit the bulbs herself.

Knowing Liz as he did, Kyle knew she would have the others leave it for him to figure out and fix. Everyone would be able to turn the lights on and off; everybody except for Maria, and maybe him, and knowing Maria she would get Michael to make her some kind of glow lamp.

It was a somber group that tramped through the front door. Max looked even more pensive then he normally did, his eyes lit on Liz and a world of worry seemed to lift. Dark eyes, hard with the years, lost their razor's edge.

Desire sparked in the air between them; pure, distilled love that bridged the pair, completed them, made them whole. It could be felt, almost seen as it jumped the gap from one to the other.

Liz's smile lit up her entire face. It shone so brightly it made the lights pale in comparison, dull and mundane. It was comparing crystal shards to perfectly cut diamonds.

Seeing the look on Liz's face, Kyle wondered what had made him such a great fool to think he ever stood a chance of stealing Liz from Max. They had loved each other since the first time they saw each other. Maybe not that long, but it sure seemed like it.

Michael grunted sourly as he pushed past Max. He didn't so much envy Max and Liz's relationship, their love for each other, it was a storybook romance; Cinderella, Snow White, the Little Mermaid, The Princess Bride, Han and Leia. If anything Michael felt sorry for them, they didn't have to work at it, it was so simple, so easy for them. Even when things were at there worst for the pair, everyone still knew, deep down, that Liz and Max were meant for each other.

Nothing like his extremely volatile relationship with Maria, who despite the fact that he loved her beyond measure of the word, was never really sure with her, always felt like he was jumping through hoops for her, constantly having to prove himself as if he wasn't sure he was good enough for Maria.

He would do anything to keep her safe, but most of the time it was being near him and the others that put her in danger. Sending her away had never entered his mind, not for more then a few seconds. The thought of spending even a second without her, knowing she would never be his again was not one he wanted to dwell on. It had left a void in him; a cold, dark, dead place that he never wanted to return to.

Isobel watched as Michael and Maria came together in a fierce embrace. It was raw passion, and seemed more when seen next to Liz and Max's cool reserve towards each other. Isobel found the scene to be cloying, bordering on offensive.

Since Jesse she has had a few boyfriends, even going so far as to go on a couple of extremely awkward dates with Kyle, but he was too much her best friend to be more. They spent so much time talking and hanging out, when they tried to move their relationship to the next level, forced their feelings to become more then the friendship they felt for each other, it had felt strange, like they were trying to be somebody other then who they were.

Nothing ever developed with any of the others. She had given Jesse his freedom, told him he should live his life without her. Only she was finding it close to impossible to live her life without him. It was as if there was something left unfinished between them.

"Get a room," she murmured disgruntle maneuvering around the two couples. "What's up with the lights?"

"We need to talk," Liz announced. The atmosphere in the room became very serious with the intensity of Liz's personality.

Sensing Liz's urgency Max became very business like. "What's going on?"

Liz glanced into the pallor, at Dawn lying on the sofa. The young girl looked so peaceful lying there, possibly even sleeping.

"Is she..?"

"No," Liz answered her husband. "She just needed," she shrugged uncertainly. "Dawn was just having one of those nights. It really wouldn't do to leave her alone."

"Dawn," Max said with a nod as he took Dawn in. "What's her story?" His voice was low, hush, meant just for those in a couple feet of him.

"Her sister," Liz began. Her gaze stayed pasted on Dawn. "Is trying to keep a friend of theirs from doing something… Stupid."

"Yeah, well… Buffy—"

"Buffy," Michael mouthed with humor. He couldn't believe somebody would actually name their daughter Buffy. Nobody that loved their daughter.

"—Doesn't seem all that smart," Maria said putting in her opinion. "Stealing a car. Assault. Kidnapping."

Max's gaze shifted from Dawn to Liz. His gaze seemed harder to those around him. "And that's not what we need to talk about?"

Liz stared Max in the eyes and simply said, "Jonathan Kent."

Max's eyes weren't the only ones that narrowed on Liz. "Isn't he in a coma right now?" Michael asked.

Liz nodded, "Mrs. Kent came by the Talon tonight. I saw her and Mr. Kent at Clark's graduation," she said emphasizing that.

"Maybe he's getting better?" Isobel suggested patiently, trying to be a voice of reason. "Clark isn't suppose to graduate for another year. If he comes back?"

"It's possible," Liz agreed. "Only Martha said his condition was getting worse, that the doctors didn't give him more then a week with how quickly his condition was deteriorating."

"And you think that means Max heals him?" Michael sounded like he wanted more convincing evidence, evidence other then Liz's say so.

"I'm saying we need to discuss this," Liz countered. "Reach a decision together."

Michael snorted knowing that what Liz wanted done was more then likely, exactly what Max would do. Most of the time he didn't mind; most of the time, Liz had the best interest of the group at heart. "What happened to staying under the radar, coming to town, get to the bottom of these writings, and then move the hell on."

"Sometimes things change," Max answered with deep meaning.

* * *

Faith grimaced slightly as she placed the briefcase on the table. Six men, hard faces and cold eyes, one and all, stood on the other side of the table watched her with skepticism. The dim lighting in the cramped little room shone off brightly polished buckles, clasps, snaps, and medallions… Metropolis Correction badges that were pinned proudly to the left breast pocket.

Normally Faith made a point of avoiding law enforcement agents of all kind. Now she was trying to buy her way back inside a maximum-security prison. Having access to the petty cash of a multibillion-dollar corporation did have its advantages.

"It's all there," she said irritably.

One of the smaller guards, not the smallest present, but thin and wiry with intelligent eyes… Mean eyes. His name was Kartor, he was the man she had been put on to by the local thugs. "You won't mind if we verify that for ourselves." Kartor was about as corrupt as a prison guard could get without being on the other side of bars. Every prison had at least one like him, and it hadn't required a very hard search to dredge this piece of human slime to the surface.

Faith grumbled quietly, but since there wasn't much she could do about it, she turned slightly, making sure to keep Kartor and his men in her field of vision, and stared at the road she had driven up not so long ago. It wasn't visible through the thick walls of concrete and mortar. She didn't need to see it to know Buffy was closing the gap, that the longer she stood in this room the closer the tiny blonde—her only friend in the whole world—came to stopping her.

Buffy had almost done it to, in that little greasy spoon they had stopped at. One look from her, that pleading in her eyes, and she had almost given over. It was a good thing Buffy didn't know just how much influence she had with her, especially when she first arrived in Sunnydale.

Her watcher had told her stories of Buffy's exploits, legends, far-flung fantasies might come closer to the stories she heard. When she first arrived, with Kakistos hot on her heels, Faith had thought Buffy was some type of heroic paragon.

Meeting her had been an eye opening revelation. Buffy wasn't anything like what Faith had been expecting, she was real. From the first moment Faith couldn't help but feel extremely envious of Buffy, a fish out of water. Insecurities can make a person act in ways they normally wouldn't. It was the main reason she tried to overwhelm Buffy's friends with her wildly overblown exaggerations.

She had fallen in love with Buffy, with Buffy's life. It was everything she always dreamed of having. A family that loved her, friends she could count on to stand by her, a watcher that wanted to protect her. It was the sort of life anybody would wish for.

There was also that hero-worship sort of crush she had on the older girl.

Then she got to know Buffy, look into her life and see it wasn't quite the idyllic little world she first thought. She learnt that Buffy was in fact, human. That her friends were very petty and extremely possessive, especially sweet, innocent little Willow. Xander with his white knight to the rescue, save you from yourself spiel all because she purposely slept with him by accident. She had made the mistake of thinking Buffy had been using him to scratch her itch, they were friends and at the time he had been good looking enough, in that almost, but never really there, rakish kind of way, to meet Buffy's criteria.

Sex wasn't a taboo for Faith, though she seldom slept with the men she flirted with, she used her body, her wiles, and her charm to get what she wanted from people. When she was in the mood to get laid it was a nameless vagabond more often then not.

Xander was a rare exception and the reason she made it was all because of Buffy, because she thought Buffy was using him to relieve that after slayage tension. All because she wanted any little part of Buffy's life she could get her hands on.

Faith shook her head in retrospection, wondering just how dense she was. Where Buffy was concerned, Faith thought it was extreme denseness. She constantly made the same mistake, mainly sleeping with the people she thought Buffy was interested in, Riley and Wood.

And now this?

"Are we done here," she asked turning to face the prison guards. Faith didn't bother to disguise the impatience in her voice. A couple of the guards looked at her, leered at her. She couldn't care less if her attitude turned these cretins cold to her.

She was here for one thing and if she had to deal with scum like this then that was all there was to it. She would put up with them. It would grate, gnaw at her like a pack of rats striping the flesh from her bones.

Kartor's smile was cold, lifeless, like that of a killer shark just before its attack. "Everything seems to be in order."

Faith returned Kartor's grin. It gleamed in her dark eyes with mad, murderous intent. "If your men harm a hair on her head, I'm going to carve off your balls with a white hot spoon," she promised him. Her voice was quiet and calm, filled with deadly promise.

Buffy would be able to handle these jokers blindfolded, with both hands tied behind her back while hopping up and down on one leg because the other had been chopped off at the knee. Still she wanted to impress upon them what would happen if they didn't follow her orders implicitly. She simply wanted Buffy detained until everything was over. The last thing she wanted was for Buffy to become culpable in the crime she was about to commit.

Then her voice hardened and she finished, "Then I'll teach you pain." It was more then a promise, it was an oath written in blood, carved in bone.

Kartor could tell it, could feel it, an unbreakable lock cinching tight.

* * *

Mary Jane sat down, scooting her simple, straight back wooden chair a little closer to the small table in front of her. She looked around wondering where Harry was, punctuality had never been one of his endearing qualities, and noticed the server approaching; an older looking woman whose once upon a time wheat field brown hair was now shot through with streaks of iron gray. Mary Jane would say the woman was more handsome then actually being attractive, laugh lines had turned into wrinkles around the eyes and high on her forehead. Her head was just a little too long and a little too narrow making her face appear gaunt. _It wouldn't take much make-up to make her look like a flesh-eating ghoul_.

"Care to see a menu, or you already have an idea as to what you want?" Her voice had the strained quality of a person that has done a lot of hard talking in the course of her life.

"I'm suppose to be meeting a friend," Mary Jane answered glancing towards the entrance. She looked back at the waitress, catching her eye. They had a listless quality to them. "A cup of coffee would be wonderful."

The woman nodded, "Coming right up."

The waitress moved away and it was only then that Mary Jane realized she hadn't gotten the woman's name. She sighed softly and mentally cursed herself. Peter had vanished more then a month ago, and since then every aspect of her life has just been off. Her awareness of everything seemed half a beat slow, sometimes more.

It was the little things she was missing, the waitress' name, forgetting a line she knows by heart, three days in a row. Every time her mind wasn't actively engaged it slipped back to Peter; where he might be, what he might be doing, might be wearing. A thousand little things.

She looked at her watch, then back at the double door entrance; the large glass windows gave an excellent view of the street beyond and the thin stream of people passing in front of the small restaurant. It was a little disconcerting, watching dozens of heads and shoulders bob pass unconcerned, talking on their cell phones, hunched over the handlebars of their high performance bicycles, the smoothness of a skateboarder, or maybe they were on a pair of rollerblades, as they speed by, with arms swinging freely, and not be able to see the legs that carried them.

It felt like she had finely woken up from her life and realized she was starring in an episode of the Outer Limits.

Turning away with a heavy sigh Mary Jane came to the conclusion that Harry was going to be very late. Except that he didn't bother to call she couldn't really fault him. He was trying to save the multinational hundred million-dollar corporation that his father had built from practically nothing.

She didn't envy Harry, he was floundering in the corporate world. He couldn't help it, his father had been the businessman, the one with the drive and ambition, the vision to bring his dreams to fruition, and the killer instinct to keep anything from stopping him.

A shudder rippled through Mary Jane's body as she remembered Norman Osborn's sadistic alter ego, The Green Goblin. The man had blithely incinerated his executive board right in front of her, then used her and a gondola full of children as bait to draw Peter out.

From what Harry told her, Norman had fallen victim to his own mad science, had been exposed to an experimental Super Soldier serum that twisted his mind, and somehow created the Goblin persona to do the things he would never be able to bring himself to do otherwise.

It made sense even if she didn't want to admit it.

"Here you go hon," the waitress, Alice, her name tag proclaimed, said as she set the sturdy looking cup, an ivory white with three pale blue rings, one thick surrounded by two slim, circling the lip of the cup, on the table. A thin tendril of stream wafted up from the black liquid inside.

"Thank you," Mary Jane said with mechanical rote.

"If you need anything else…"

"Thanks," she said again.

Alice bobbed her head. She had been serving people long enough to know a dismissal when she heard one; polite ones, rude, indifferent. All kinds. This one wasn't so different from any of them.

"Excuse me," Harry's voice, as she seldom heard it, overly enthusiastic, burst upon the scene. The wooden legs of the chair scraped over the tiled floor as he pulled it out. "Can I get one of those?" He asked pointing to Mary Jane's cup of coffee. "Thanks."

As soon as the words were out of his mouth, Harry completely forgot about Alice. She was like a thousand other people in his life, his reality; somebody on the fringe, not really there unless he needed them.

Mary Jane watched Alice go with pity. If anything Harry was worse then she remembered. He had always been more then a little condescending to people below his social standing, except for Peter. Once Peter had been his best friend.

Now though…

She still wasn't sure if she trusted Harry, or his claim. That he wanted to find Peter wasn't in doubt, just his reason why.

"So," Mary Jane said turning her attention back to Harry. Her arched eyebrow said as much, maybe more, then her solitary word.

Harry smiled at her, an insolent little boy grin as he leaned forward, forearms on the table. "I think I've found him." Again there was genuine excitement in his voice.

"How?" Was the question that popped out. Him telling her alleviated a few of her concerns, not all of them, not by any stretch of the imagination. Harry didn't possess his father's intelligent, but he was smart, crafty. Despite several recent setbacks, running Oscorp had been good for Harry.

"I hired a private investigator, an entire team actually," he amended with a moments thought as he leaned back in his chair. "They hadn't been getting anywhere, so… I had this thought, who's the one person Peter is sure to stay in contact with?"

Mary Jane's eyes went wide. "Aunt May."

"Aunt May," Harry agreed. "So I had a couple of my agents search Aunt May's apartment-"

"Harry!" The shock and outrage in Mary Jane's voice drew a good number of eyes. She lowered her volume before going on, "How could you? What if Aunt May had been home?"

There was a glint in Harry's eyes as he said, "It's good to see that my reputation proceeds me." There was a light mocking quality in his tone as he made light of what people thought of him. "I did make sure Aunt May was out of the apartment."

Mary Jane shook her head. "How did you do it? Make sure she was out…"

Harry became serious. "I invited her out to lunch. Told her I wanted to find a way to make things right with Peter. She didn't really believe me but Aunt May's too old school not to show up, plus she likes me, she hopes I'll get my act together," he smiled as he added, "and couldn't resist the chance to tell me just that to my face."

The tipsy little grin that fell onto Mary Jane's lips was the first real smile she's had in nearly a month. She could just imagine the conversation between them, as Aunt May laid into Harry.

"She's a, what's that saying… A tough old bird?" He gave his head a fond shake. "Of course she let slip that she's been in touch with Peter."

"She never said anything to me," Mary Jane mumbled to herself with a deep frown.

"Probably because you're too nice and respectful to get under her skin," he commented in retrospection.

Mary Jane rolled her eyes. "Please tell me…"

"Don't worry," Harry assured her. "I'm not about to do anything that would hurt Aunt May, or you. I'm not my father."

"I didn't—"

"I know MJ," Harry said visibly relaxing.

Mary Jane took a deep breath. The question that had been on her lips, in her heart, since Harry first mentioned finding Peter couldn't be contained any longer. "Where?"

Harry smiled, a soft grin that made him appear much younger. "Feel like taking a trip to Kansas?"


	7. Chap 4: The Man Comes Around pt 4

Chapter Four: The Man Comes Around – Part Four

Lionel Luthor stared at the dull grey ceiling as he lay upon the thin prisoner mattress; the first early morning rays were beginning to filter through the barred windows. Dawn was still half an hour off, but the sky was already growing pale as the day rushed forward.

Ever since his incarceration he had been finding sleep increasingly difficult to come by, and despite popular opinion it had nothing to do with the lumps in his mattress or the uniformly rigid springs underneath. He had grown up in squalor worse then anything the great state of Kansas was willing to throw at him.

His conscious wasn't eating at him. He had done nothing in his life that violated his moral fiber. It was almost a certainty that the great majority would find certain choices he's made… repugnant. He didn't.

Of late, certain events did vex him. Events many claimed he orchestrated; the assassination of young Chloe Sullivan and the attempt made on his own son, Alexander. There was even some talk he was responsible for Clark's disappearance and Jonathan's coma.

While he certainly had the resources, even in prison, to orchestrate such events, he could only ask, "To what end?" His conviction had already been rendered. Removing them at that point meant nothing, other then making him look guilty and seeking retribution.

He couldn't help but feel there was a new player afoot; somebody cunning and resourceful, used to operating unseen and skilled at manipulating circumstances to serve their own ends.

His ability to counteract this new threat was severely hampered by his conviction, which was probably exactly what they wanted. With him out of the way, handicapped as it were, it might draw them from the shadows. It might make them bolder, overconfident which would lead to mistakes, and even the smallest error could prove fatal.

Still there was that nagging feeling he hadn't been able to put off yet. It was a consent tick in the back of his skull, as if a countdown to his own doom had begun.

A heavy clang reverberated in the air as the lock to the thick steel door was turned. Lionel turned his head, craning slightly to catch a glimpse of the door, a mixture of fear and curiosity swelled in his gut. The door was the only way in or out of his private sanctuary. While he had been convicted of murdering his parents, they were still affording him a modicum of civility. At least until he was sentenced later in the week. If his lawyers were good, as the fortune he was paying them would indicate, they would be able to keep him here instead of general population until his appeals were heard.

He slipped his legs over the side of the cot and sat up just as the door swung open. While visitors weren't uncommon and he had received quite a few during his stay, none of them had come before the crack of dawn. With a healthy dose of concern Lionel realized that what made his little chamber of solitude ideal to isolate him from the rest of the prison population also made for a perfect death trap.

Even if somebody heard him scream, which was doubtful, there was no way they could reach him in time…

Nobody that hadn't vanished to parts unknown at any rate. And with the way he's treated the Kents recently, it was even money whether Clark would save him or let him be killed.

The first person through the door sent a chill through him. The blood pounding in his veins was suddenly coated in a sheet of ice. As far as corrupt prison guards went, Jacob Kartor was the worst of a bad lot. How the man remained on the other side of the bars was a matter of some speculation. If there was anybody in this whole facility who could kill him in cold blood, in front of an eye witness, and walk away unscathed it was Correction Officer Jacob Kartor.

It was the second person through the door that drew Lionel's complete attention. For Lionel, Jacob Kartor had vanished from the world as he was transported back more then a score of years. The young girl that strolled through the door wasn't a spitting image, but was such a close resemblance Lionel couldn't help but blurt, "Taylor?"

Her dark eyes hardened even more. Lionel wasn't sure how that was possible, but it happened none-the-less. "Faith," she said in a voice cold enough to shatter steel.

With that one word Lionel understood who she was. His and Taylor's daughter. Taylor had always been one to work on ironic little twist like that. She hoped Faith, their daughter, would bring out the best in him. She said it so much the word stuck. It hadn't worked though; he remained the same, driven man he had always been.

The last time he had seen her was eighteen years ago, when Faith turned three. He was in Boston, on business, and on the spur of the moment had bought a car load of presents and paid her a visit. She had been a bundle of raw energy. Aside from opening the presents Faith hadn't sat still until she had worn herself, and him, out, hunkering down in his lap to take a nap. He had wanted to do much the same. Jennifer had called Faith her little firecracker and after the visit Lionel understood why.

He had promised to return, and bring Alexander and the new baby, Julian. They should know each other, not grow up strangers; besides a little competition between siblings was always healthy. It would push them to be better, make them strive to be best possible heir to the Luthor Empire.

It was a promise he had meant to keep.

It never happened.

Two weeks after that visit Julian was dead. His wife followed suit soon after and just as he pulled himself back together a lethal fire claimed both Taylor and Faith. Although an autopsy would later reveal that Taylor had been shot three times; once in the head, twice in the chest. Faith had been burnt so badly the only way to identify her was through dental records.

If the word mercy could ever be associated with the murder of a child, it was that Faith had been smothered in her sleep before the flames consumed her flesh.

Lionel understood the murders for what they had been; somebody wanted to break him so that LuthorCorp would be ripe for the pickings. Their plan had backfired. Instead of crumpling like a broken man would have, he threw himself into his company with a zeal and vigor unprecedented before. His intensity was all consuming.

Oddly though, nobody had ever made any sort of move on LuthorCorp.

He always put that off to the fact that he hadn't left himself vulnerable. That he was simply better then they were. Several times he toyed with the idea of leaving himself open to draw them out, but had never followed through.

If this truly was Faith, which was in some doubt. True the girl look like Jennifer, but didn't appear to much older then fifteen, maybe seventeen, but definitely not twenty-one. If it was Faith, then that meant somebody else's three year old daughter had been killed in her place, and the parents, after all these years, still didn't know what her fate was. They had been denied the closure every parent deserved.

Thoughts, ideas, intuitive hunches, memories came fast and furious to the deposed tycoon. His mind became a kaleidoscope like engine as it shifted and refined the limited information at his disposal.

Plastic surgery could explain the resemblance, but his gut told him that wasn't the case. Beside there was the obvious age difference. Why go through a risky operation only to make such a blunder. Anybody wanting to run a scam on him wouldn't make that mistake.

"Get on with it," Kartor snapped. An itch had developed between his shoulder blades and he could almost hear the seconds tick by as time ran down. He had seen enough in his life to know he didn't know everything. This chick said she could bust Luthor out all by her lonesome and was willing to pay him and his men a cool million to cause a security blackout… He was more then willing to accept her non-taxable charitable contribution.

Once, a few years back, when he had been visiting a few college buddies in Chicago, he had seen this girl, no more then thirteen or so, fall right out the side of a bus. Not off the top of the bus, or out of a window, but clean through the side. She landed in the middle of the street, car horns blaring, tire squealing as the car skidded right through her, and a second car slammed right into their trunk.

At first he thought the girl was a goner; then she stood up, right through the car's crumpled trunk and sprinted for the nearest subway… Running right through anything in her way. It was like watching a ghost, only this ghost had been carrying expensive gift bags.

"Close the door," Faith said as she eclipsed the last few feet between her and the cell with several quick strides.

"What," Kartor muttered softly. He strode up to her saying, "That wasn't part of the deal." He grabbed by the shoulder and tried to pull her around, but Faith didn't budge. Kartor tried again and grunted sourly when she just stood there. "I get you in; you get the old man out. That was the deal."

"Deal's been changed," Faith informed Kartor. Her voice was low, calm… A promised filled whisper. Her eyes never broke contact with Lionel's.

Faith moved so quickly that all Lionel saw was a blur. She spun to the right, the blade of her right hand slashing across his throat knocking him back half a step before she twinned her arm with his and cinched the lock tight, pulling him up onto his toes. An instant later her forearm crashed into his chest, the sound of bones cracking filled the air. It was accompanied by a sickening pop as Kartor's shoulder popped out of its socket. Releasing him Kartor hit the floor with enough force to bounce twice before he came to rest.

Lionel stood up, stared at Faith. He had only seen one other person move so fast, display comparable strength. The small exhibition Clark had unwittingly put on in front of him was a display he would never forget. Faith's show, while impressive still paled when stood beside Clark's, especially after he fired a few rounds into the palm of his hand.

Faith finished her turn; her expression was unchanged from prior to her disposing of Kartor. He would say it was cold, but it wasn't. It was devoid of anything resembling an emotion.

"Faith… My god," he gasped in a rush, then took a calming breath. "Is that really you?"

"The one and only, daddy dearest." While her eyes and face, her entire body language was that of a blank slate, her voice wasn't. It was terse and tense, filled with white hot hostility barely holding onto a semblance of rationality. Lionel had seldom heard its like before.

"I can't believe you're alive. I thought you were dead."

Faith tilted her head slightly. "Imagine that, you thought I was dead. Kind of ironic since you're the one who wanted me that way."

"What?" Lionel blanched. He gave his head several small shakes as he whispered, "No." Then in a firmer voice he went on, "No! I would never wish any harm on you."

Her right eyebrow arched a fraction. "And I'm suppose to believe that after you've just been convicted of killing your parents, or because your son Lex was lying in a hospital bed, dieing from some unknown poison laced into his favorite scotch. Are there any family members you haven't tried to kill?"

"I never, I wouldn't—"

"This has been fun, wished we could of had more of these little father daughter chats, but… Father, I'm going to kill you now."

Lionel blanched at the statement, could almost feel the blood rush from his body. He took a step away from the bars. For the first time her voice matched her expression. There was the barest hint of excitement flashing in her eyes, but more then anything they were filled with resignation as she walked toward the steel bars at a determined pace.

"Faith you don't want to do this," Lionel said. He was extremely grateful to the security inch and half steel bars between her and him provided.

"Oh, but I do," she said stopping in front of the bars. She gave them a curious look before she took hold of one, tasted it. It groaned softly with the strain. Faith smiled and said, "I really, really do," before giving a healthy jerk to the bar. The metal scream as she ripped it free. She tossed the bar aside with negligent indifference. It clattered on the concrete with a sharp metallic clang as it bounced away.

Lionel didn't realize he had backed away from Faith until he hit his cot and sat down hard. There was nothing that could stop her. Not unless Clark made one of his infamous last minute rescues.

He cringed, shuddering slightly as Faith tore a second bar free. A mouse trapped in its den had a better chance of escaping a rattlesnake then he did of getting out of this cell alive.

The opening was more then large enough for her to climb inside. She slipped one leg through the gaping hole and ducked her head and stopped.

Lionel saw a person dart from the door into the cell; a girl with blonde hair and that was all Lionel was able to make out until she grabbed Faith by the arm. She was as fast as Faith and seemed to be as strong if how easily she jerked Faith back was any indication.

She was a tiny slip of a girl, even smaller then Faith and looked just as young. "Let go of me B," Faith snarled at Buffy.

"Not gonna happen," Buffy responded. There was a soothing quality laced into the steel of Buffy's voice.

"Ain't gonna tell you again," Faith warned.

"I'm not gonna let—"

Faith's spinning back-fist caught Buffy flush across her cheek giving Faith a little more room. She continued to spin allowing her momentum to carry her through as she jumped up, bringing her left fist high. She fell back to the concrete floor, driving her fist toward Buffy's head.

Buffy slipped the punch, dipping low and twisting to the right ever so slightly before rising, driving her right fist into Faith's gut. Combined with the brunette's downward momentum the blow was enough to knock the breath from her with an explosive exhale. Spinning in a tight circle Buffy's right fist smashed into the side of Faith's head, almost driving her to a knee.

Buffy hesitated; the very last thing she wanted was to get into a no holds barred fight with Faith. The last time they had done that it had been over a man as well, and it had torn her apart. The aftermath had left her shattered inside, though she was able to mask most of it with a wall of planning and prep for the upcoming ascension.

"Don't mak—"

Faith lunged back up, driving the point of her right elbow into Buffy's throat. She wrapped her arm around Buffy's neck cinching the lock, planning to drive Buffy's face into the concrete floor. It might leave her stunned enough so she could finish what she came here for.

Buffy had other ideas as she tucked and rolled, throwing herself forward as she ripped Faith's right leg from the floor.

The two girls went down in a tumble of rolling bodies and thrashing limbs. They exchanged a series of ineffectual punches, kicks, knees, elbows, and the occasional head-butts in half a heartbeat before both were back on their feet.

Faith lunged, grabbing Buffy in a tight embrace, lifting her from the floor, and drove her into the side of the cage. Steel bars caved with the force of the impact. She slammed the outside of her forearm into the side of Buffy's head while keeping the blonde pinned with her left forearm pressed into her chest. A second elbow followed the first driving Buffy to the side.

Buffy's right knee sliced into Faith's ribs and she gave the taller girl a hard shove creating a microcosm of space between them. Quick right and left hook punches peppered each side of Faith's head.

A third punch followed but Faith slipped under it and drove her left knee into Buffy's solar plexus. She clasped Buffy's left arm with both hands, pivoted quickly and hurled Buffy towards the hard concrete wall.

Buffy crashed into the wall, almost smashed through it. Dust and small chunks of concrete fall to the floor. Reacting on instinct Buffy dropped low, a bare instant before Faith's foot slammed into the spot her head had just vacated.

She sprang back up, snatching onto Faith's leg, toppling the younger girl. Faith hit the floor with a thud. Buffy was quick to follow, trying to pin Faith but she bucked wildly.

In seconds the pair had reversed position. Faith pulled her right arm back, an instant later it shot forward much like a piston. A rapport went off like a gunshot, when Faith's fist connected with the floor. It pulverized the concrete next to Buffy's head as the blonde shifted just enough to avoid being the recipient of the punch.

Buffy's left arm snaked between the side of Faith's neck and left shoulder. Slender fingers twinned in Faith's dark tresses as Buffy's hand latched onto the back of her head. She pulled down and heaved her hips up flipping them.

Somehow Faith managed to get her legs up, with the soles of her feet pressed into Buffy's gut. With everything she had Faith hurled Buffy off her.

Buffy slammed into the cage door. The bolt snapped like a dry twig, and the door bent inward. Buffy didn't pause as she threw herself back at Faith, her tiny fist crashing into the other girl's jaw before her foot ever touched ground.

The heavy force of the blow drove Faith to a knee. Using the momentum to propel her, Faith spun in a tight circle as she threw her right leg out. The heel caught Buffy square in the small of her back forcing her off her stride.

Faith surged at Buffy. The tiny blonde twisted around, caught the charging Faith, latching on tight. She continued to turn, a small pirouette, and hurled them through the concrete wall.

Lionel gaped in stunned amazement at the hole they made, at the destruction they wrought. There was quite a bit more to them then what was apparent to the naked eye.

He had been able to follow the fight in only the most limited way, the pair moved like dervishes and it wouldn't even take all ten fingers to count the number of seconds the fight lasted.

While the blonde girl, B as Faith called her, was interested in saving his life, Faith controlled the fight. She was the aggressor dictating tempo and speed. It had been all B could do to defend herself.

That meant it was only a matter of time before Faith walked back in here and finished what she started. If he didn't act soon he would still be here when she did. _Waiting to be plucked, like a plump partridge_.

He stared at his cell door; it hung there, partially opened, a chunk of deformed steel, leaning there, more resembling a drunken sailor then a door.

A shudder, only partially suppressed, rippled through him. The human body; flesh and bone, sinew and muscle were not stronger then hardened steel. Concrete and steel weren't supposed to crumple upon impact with the much frailer, more delicate human frame.

Lionel slipped out of the opening. A quick search of Kartor provided him with a security card, a set of keys, and some petty cash. He left whatever weapons the man possessed right where they were.

His only desire at the moment was to get as far from Faith as quickly as humanly possible. The last thing he wanted was to give the guards or police reason to shoot first and figure out what went wrong later.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Michael slipped into the abandoned nurses' station. Previous experiences with such acts gave him a sense of familiarity with the procedure. He didn't rush, but he didn't exactly dawdle either.

Jonathan Kent's medical charts were easy to find, and he thanked whatever deity was up there, looking out for him, then cursed them liberally when he didn't immediately find any blank paper. Then struck by a moment of inspiration he emptied the fax machine of its paper.

He placed the stack of plain white paper next to the medical file. He placed his right hand over the file, it lifted into the air, flipped over, green light flashed and the information appeared on the paper. He moved the page over, face down and the top sheet flipped over revealing another blank piece of paper. The next page flipped over it and green light flashed again.

In seconds it was running like a well oiled machine. One page of the file would flip over, light would flash and the information would be transcribed over, then both pages would flip in opposite directions landing in their respective piles as the next page hovered into place.

He kept four to five pages in the air at one time… Up, copy and flip… Up, copy and flip… Up, copy and flip.

"Kinko, better watch your back," he quipped softly to himself as papers did a zany impression of children playing an insane game of leap frog.

By the time a nurse returned to the duty station, nothing was out of place and Michael was closing the door to Jonathan Kent's room. He kept the handle turned until the door was snug against its frame. Years of close calls had taught him the importance of sound management. He had spent a lot of hours mastering certain sounds. The easiest way was doing exactly what he was. Eliminate what you can.

"You got it?" Max asked from the foot of Jonathan Kent's bed.

Isabel stood at the head of the bed, her right index finger rested gently on his forehead. Her eyes closed and a determined frown creased her lips.

Michael held up the thick sheaf of papers as he said, "The medical files of one Jonathan Kent," and crossed the floor to join Max.

Max held out his hand and ask, "Any problems?" In a hushed whisper.

"There's a squad of security guards right outside the door," he said handing the paper over to Max. "They're just being really quiet."

Max smiled lightly at Michael's attempted humor. It wasn't quite as bad as some of the stunts he's pulled over the years, but that probably had more to do with his lack of props then anything else.

He flipped open the folded papers as Michael said, "Took a look at his file—"

"And you actually understood it?" Max inquired cheekily.

"Ha, ha." Michael muttered darkly. At times his reputation was a definite liability. It was a constant, uphill battle to get anyone to take him serious. Except for Liz. For some reason she never took past deeds into account, which made him feel dirty before he even uttered a word. "Seriously though, the dude had a lot of medical problems… Specially for somebody so young. Heart condition, shit like that. Wouldn't surprise me at all if he had some sort of stroke or embolism or something like that. Well, you remember what happened last time you tried to fuck with the natural course of things."

Max shook his head, a small shake as he quickly read the file. "Not really," he said in a distant voice. "Everything after I healed Valenti is… Hazy?" He shrugged, almost dismissively. The only person he ever talked to about that night was Liz. To Isobel and Michael it was like it never happened, which was just fine to him. "I don't really remember anything until Liz healed me, expunged Wheeler from this body."

"The next time I ask for quiet…" Isobel murmured as she opened her eyes.

"Well," Max prompted expectantly.

His sister ignored him as she continued, "… Remind me to leave you two at home so I can bring Maria and Kyle."

A soft glare filled Max's eyes as his gaze remained unwavering. "Did you find anything?" He asked a bit more pointedly.

Isobel matched her brother's stare. "Nothing," she answered after a slow three count. Most times Liz kept him pretty well grounded; at times his head got too big for any hat to fit him. She wanted to make sure he understood she answered because she chose to, not because he ordered it.

"Nothing, like there's nothing there or nothing, like there's nothing of use?" Michael asked impatiently, seemingly oblivious to royal siblings contest of wills.

"Nothing. As in a big black nothing," she answered in a disgusted huff.

"Yeah, but was it natural or not?"

Isobel's ice cold blaze shifted to Michael. If he felt intimidated by her death glare he didn't show it. At times Isobel admired his denseness.

He broke the world down into three basic grouping; his family, which had grown from just her and Max to include Maria, Liz, Kyle, and Sheriff Valenti; his enemies, which included—but was not strictly limited to—Members of the Special Unit, Kavor and all his cronies, and anybody else he became suspicious of. Then there was everybody else.

Michael would do anything to protect his family, keep everyone safe. The same was true for the lengths he would go to to ensure his enemies were dead. Often he never thought far enough ahead to consider the consequences his actions brought.

"I couldn't tell you if it was natural or not." She finally said after a thoughtful pause. Then, after a slow beat, she added, "I've never tried to dream walk somebody in a deep coma before."

"You're right about him having a lot of medical problems," Max said as he continued to go over Jonathan's file. "Only they all seemed to crop up overnight. Between one visit and the next."

"How much time passed between one visit and the next?" Isobel asked.

Michael added, "Yeah. Most of these Midwest farmers types only show up at the doctors when all their old wives tales about chicken soup and apple pie—"

"Like clockwork," Max cut in. "Every six months."

"Wife probably made him go," Michael muttered. "She seems like a real task master."

Isobel rolled her eyes as she glanced heavenward. She looked back at Michael and said, "Yeah, she's a real ghoul."

"You sensed it to?" He asked seriously.

"Look," Max started bringing their attention back to him. "I don't know about you guys but I find it a little suspicious that a guy in perfect health suddenly comes down with a handful of chronic diseases."

"And not everything in the world is Government conspiracy meant to ensnare us," Isobel reminded her brother.

"Or alien plots designed to kill us," Michael added.

Max titled his head a bare fraction as he shot his best friend a questioning look. "That's rich coming from Mr. I see enemies in ever corner."

"It's called being cautious." Michael defended his position.

"It's called being paranoid," Max countered.

"Tomato, Tomoto," Michael shot back.

Isobel stepped between the two saying, "Guys, can we please not do this in front of the coma patient?"

"Why?" Michael's tone came out as extremely belligerent, but it didn't change as he continued, "It's not like he's gonna hop out of bed, screaming aliens are here. Aliens are here, as he goes running down the hall, or anything."

Isobel glared at the man, who in another life had been her consort, for what felt like an eternity. She wished she could take back every nice thing she has ever said about him, but there simply weren't enough instances for her to actually remember one.

"If you guys are done," Max said in the prolonged stretch of silence. "I'm going to do a quick scan, see if I can determine what's wrong. No healing," he added when he saw they didn't like his plan. One of them was difficult enough to deal with, but eventual he would be able to override their objections. Both of them, working together, arguing with each other as much as him was just about impossible. It was like trying to climb Everest wearing a straight jacket while being shackled to a giant redwood and unable to use his powers.

After a moments thought Isobel nodded. She knew her brother well enough to know he was going to get what he wanted, one way or another.

Max handed Isobel Jonathan's file before moving to the side of the bed. He took hold of Jonathan's forearm with his left hand, like Isobel before he kept his eyes open as he delved deep into the man lying in front of him.

Isobel turned her head toward Michael, her gaze was still hot enough to freeze molten steel, and said, "The next time you decide to help me convince my brother from doing something, do me a favor. Don't."

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The van was too large to be maneuvered in the alley by an inexperienced driver, although Dawn thought she could have turned the vehicle around if Maria had given her the chance. Maria had politely told her, "That would happen when hell froze over."

Dawn bit her tongue, her knowledge of hells environment was not a subject she wanted to bring up with anyone, let alone the first friend she's made in over a year, almost two.

Maria reminded Dawn of Anya. Only a little, like she wasn't afraid to speak her mind and she was completely devoted to the men she loved. It was extremely ironic that the men in question, Michael, like Xander seemed completely oblivious to the fact.

It was so very tragic.

The reason Maria was forced to park in the alley was that the previous owner had lived in the loft above the Talon eliminating a need for an owner's parking space. Dawn didn't think she would be able to live above the place she worked. True the guy in "Bullet Proof Monk" lived above the Chinese theater, but he was more of a thief then a projectionist, so that really didn't count.

"You don't need to help out," Maria said as she unlocked the back door. "I'm more then capable of handling this all on my own." She pushed the door open and added, "I've done it before."

"What would that say about me if I didn't lend a hand?" Dawn asked with a frown as she moved into the building. "I mean, especially after you guys put me up for the night?" She pointed out.

Maria gave her head a very diminutive shake. "You realize, as far as being a teenager goes, you're strange."

"You don't know the half of it," Dawn mumbled too softly for Maria to hear.

"What was that?"

"Uh, nothing," Dawn answered. "Just wondering where the light switch was?" She lied. After all these years it was an easy lie.

Before finding out she was the Key, that she was made from a little piece of Buffy, Dawn never realized there was anything different about her.

She wasn't a Slayer, wasn't even a potential, yet the spell the monks used to create her also gave her a smidge of Buffy's superpowers. Her eyesight was better, while she couldn't see in full darkness, or even almost full darkness, but so long as there was a smattering of light she could see perfectly fine like it was dusk outside. What was filtering in through the windows and the open door was more then enough for her.

While she was stronger then most guys and could sprint faster then them, for all of about ten feet, she lacked Buffy's natural grace and athleticism, not to mention her stamina.

When Dawn was young, she had instinctively kept things to herself, didn't even write certain things down in her diary. She didn't want people to treat her like a freak, not that it helped. In school she was a social pariah. That had more to do with the fact she was smarter then most everyone else, then her being a freak.

It wasn't until she read Giles' journal a few years back and found out she was made from a piece of Buffy by a group of monks only a few months earlier that she put everything together. It had actually taken her a couple weeks to put everything together and she had to suffer a mild mental breakdown in the process, but eventually it all clicked.

She flicked the switch as the back door closed. "So how is it your almost nineteen and having to take a high school placement test? I still don't get that."

"Long story," Dawn answered.

Maria shrugged as she suggested, "How about the cliff notes version?"

Dawn picked up one of the chairs, held it there for a moment before setting it on the floor. She had never really talked to anybody about her mother, everybody she could talk to about it all went through it with her. While they didn't say so, she knew none of them wanted to bring up that year, or the one that followed it, or the one after that. They had all lost people they loved, but for her, it was one after another, after another, after another.

Setting a chair on the floor she said, "My mom died three years ago. There was a brain tumor, but the doctors removed it. A couple months later she had an aneurysm. They said it was painless, that she didn't suffer." She shrugged as she set another chair on the floor. "Needless to say I didn't handle it all that well; started skipping classes, shoplifting…any little thing to get attention, to have somebody, anybody notice me. It didn't work. Most of the time I felt invincible and Buffy was acting like a robot more often then not. I missed too much time over the last few months, and not too surprisingly, the school held me back.

"The next year wasn't much better. Buffy's best friend's girlfriend was murdered by a masochistic sociopath. He almost killed Buffy that same day, but Willow managed to save her. And last year, well Spike died saving a bunch of people, the school was shut down and the town was abandoned. Then collapsed into a huge sink hole that the pacific rushed to fill in.

"After that," Dawn continued with a lazy shrug, "me and Buffy, along with some of our friends did a bit of sightseeing around southern Europe; Greece, Italy, Spain. Spending the last few weeks in London. I was thinking attending one of the London boarding schools, being able to spend my vacations taking impromptu Euro trips, but now we got this Faith situation…"

Dawn stopped, realizing Maria hasn't said a word in quite some time. She twisted around and spotted Maria just inside the door they came through, looking at her as if she had grown a tail or horns or suddenly sprouted indigo colored fur.

Maria didn't have a clue what to think. She suspected Buffy was something of a scatter shot hair brain with the little bit of information Dawn hinted at last night. She had lost so much in such a short time, Maria could only compare it to losing Alex.

For the longest time it didn't feel real, as if Alex was just on a long vacation as if he simply never returned from Sweden. Every time she remembered him, it was a slap in the face that left a cold, dark void in her heart.

She couldn't imagine facing that kind of loss three years in a row. On top of that she had also lost, not just her home, but the entire town she had grown up in. For Dawn the saying, "You can never go home again," was more then apt.

With everything that has gone on in her life, Maria couldn't imagine what that would be like. To never be able to walk down the streets of Roswell. It was impossible for her to evoke those emotions. It was a deep hope of hers that she would never experience them first hand.


	8. Chap 4: THe Man Comes Around pt 5

Chapter Four: The Man Comes Around—Part Five

Manufactured light cut through the dimness, danced off the walls and floor as Liz and Kyle descended into the cave. The flashlights were more a prop then anything else, either one could have illuminated the cave bright as day. That however would have been hard to explain if somebody were to stumble upon them.

So for the time being they pretended to be normal humans.

"Wow," Kyle breathed out gazing at the wondrous grotto before him. "This place is—"

"Sacred," Liz said as she ran her fingers over the cave wall with a feather light touch. The natural stone was rough with age. "You can feel the past here." Closing her eyes she allowed the image of years long past to wash over her. "This was a holy place," she said. Her voice sounded far away to her own ears. Louder by far were the chants, ancient songs of worship.

Kyle watched Liz with trepidation as she moved deeper into the cave. A blissful, sublime look had spread across her face as soon as she closed her eyes. With a quick step he caught up with her. "Holy place," he prompted a little uneasily.

"Gods would dwell among them from time to time. This was their place. Shamans would come here to commune with them."

"Like what the Antarans do?"

"No," Liz said with a small shake of her head. "Antarans need a host body—"

"And what these others don't?" Kyle asked as he followed her deeper.

"They could," Liz answered. "But they're cold, dispassionate people and while they look like us, they're not like us. They believe we're beneath them, that we're, at best, pets meant to be kept, at worst, vermin that need to be exterminated."

"And people worshipped them?"

"They… It was different back then, the people, they didn't understand, couldn't understand, couldn't comprehend what they were dealing with. They were simple people; there was this world and the spirit world. And these gods, they looked like us but possessed power beyond comprehension."

"So don't we," Kyle pointed out.

"Beyond comprehension," Liz repeated as her fingers grazed over one of the intricate series of symbols. "They were…" She paused in thought. Her fingers touched something different and her eyes snapped open, light flared brilliant as a blazing sun. Liz felt a tug, a gentle but insistent pull. "Kyle." There was genuine fear in her voice as she reached out for her one time high school sweetheart.

Without the slightest hesitation Kyle grabbed Liz's outstretched hand and was jerked forward as Liz was sucked into some type of interdimensional rift. "I've got you," he shouted pulling back with all his might and felt his hands slip on Liz's skin. He grunted, muscles strained as he pulled back yet slid forward. His heavy work boots weren't getting any traction.

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**He cares for you deeply**. The voice said from all around her. It boomed like rumbling thunder, yet was soft as a whispering wind. **Beyond all, he prizes you most**.

"Who?" Liz shouted, or thought she shouted. She felt the strain but didn't hear any sound. Not sound as she was used to hearing it.

**The Betrayer**. The word sounded a curse, a sin worse then naming someone a pedophile. **The Destroyer**. There was such hatred in those simple words, such all consuming loathing. Whoever this person was destroying him utterly, obliterating him so that no trace of his existence remained was too good a fate for him.

Liz could feel the raw emotion oozing into her, seeping into her pores, filling every fiber of her being. "Who?" She demanded, only vaguely worried when she heard the echoes of the same unbridled hatred in her own words.

**Zan**. Eons of pain and grief, rage and longing swelled in that single word. They crashed into her, buffeted her from every side. A solitary island, small and desolate in the midst of the raging sea.

"No!" She screamed pushing back against the overwhelming, crushing assault upon her very self. A calmness settled over the area. Liz could tell the entity was taken back by her strength. "You haven't the right."

**Who has more right**? The voice crackled with savage arrogance **Who has more cause then I**? **Who else has witnessed his butchery**, **his craving for power**, **for dominance over all life**.

Liz shook her head, at least it felt like she shook her head, her body felt so distant. "Max doesn't care about power, dominance."

**Tell that to the world he destroyed**. **The people obliterated in a blink on the whim of a presumptuous child**.

"Max wouldn't, none of them would do what you say," Liz argued angrily.

**Forty years ago**, **as you humans count the passage of time**, **the being you know of as Max**, **Child King of the Antar Federation**, **sowed the seeds to the destruction of my world**. **Brokering peace with me while plotting our annihilation with General Zod.**

"That isn't possible," Liz muttered.

**Twenty one years ago**, **shortly after the birth of my son**, **I uncovered their treachery**. **Too little**, **too late to save my world**. **Denounced as a hysteric**, **laughed at and ridiculed by my peers**. **Enough knew the truth when they saw it**. **Enough to save a remnant of my people**. **Thousands of a race that numbered billions**. **It would be enough**.

**Twenty One years ago I sent my son to Earth with the key to our people's salvation and now**,** when the time of fruition is upon us, Zan seeks to thwart my plans**. **Seeks to undo all that I have strived for**.

"Max wouldn't… He couldn't. He remembers nothing of his time before Earth," Liz said in a rush. She could feel him exerting his will once again. He was so powerful, so strong. She knew she wouldn't be able to resist him for long.

If at all.

But there was a way. If she could simply convince him.

**I could kill him where he stands**. **But he needs suffer loss like I have**.

"He has," Liz screamed at him, only her voice sounded so very small. "He's lost everything once. Bet…"

**He hasn't lost you**.

"… rayed by those he loved to one he trusted."

**Not yet**.

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"Kyle!" Liz's shout filled his ears, amplified by her powers in a way Kyle didn't understand. "Don't let go!"

"I won't! I'll never let go!" And he wouldn't. No matter what he would never let go of Liz. In a way, never had let go of her. "Never," he vowed softly and concentrated, focusing his shoulder his head turned to the side with his cheek pressed against the rift, left arm bent at the elbow with his hand pressed flat against the cave wall. He would die before he gave another inch.

"It's in here Kyle, They're here."

Her voice sounded so far away, farther then it should have. He strained, stretching, intent on keeping his vice like grip on her forearm.

"They hate Max!"

"Liz!" Kyle growled. "You have to help me Liz." Her arm was sliding through his fingers. Her skin felt slick, like she just lathered them in grease.

"Hate them all!"

"Concentrate Liz." He was losing her. He gritted his teeth and squeezed harder. He'd apologize later for the broken bones. Suddenly she was jerked out of his hand. "No!" He shouted, lunging forward.

The rift swallowed him, the only thing left outside was his left arm from finger tips to his elbow and his legs somewhere around mid thigh. It was strange, he could feel himself outside, just like always, but inside his body felt as if it had dissolved into a million subatomic fibers; it was like he was everywhere and nowhere, that he was hardwired into everything.

He groped blindly trying to grab hold of anything. He wasn't sure how he was able to grope, or how he expected to hold onto anything. He had no body, no real body, but he knew—

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The boy had such strength for a human, was as strong as the girl. It was unprecedented in the length of human history. Jor-El knew he could easily overwhelm both of them if he could spare a fraction more of his will, but diverting that much of his attention from Kal would allow his son to escape before he was ready to face what was to come, and that could not come to pass, the fate of two worlds hung in the balance.

While they were of intense interest to him, he could not allow his attention to be diverted at this crucial junction. He only needed one, and the boy, while a curiosity, was simply that, as much as the odd Sapiens Superior, that have cropped up over the last dozen or so millennium. Recently their numbers have become more prevalent, some with powers that may one day even rival that of a true Kryptonian, but still, they were only a curiosity.

The girl however was anything but. She was a balm to a vexing problem and the opening salvo to the one thing he never thought he would see…

Revenge.

Discovering the Antarans, not just on Earth, but in Smallville, was an event he had never dreamt of. He believed it to be an impossibility. He had thought it was going to take centuries before he could bring those responsible for the destruction of Krypton to justice. And while this wouldn't be justice, it would be just.

Now all he need do was relieve himself of the boy. Despite him being a servant of the Antarans, Jar-El sensed no ill intent in him. He was simply concerned for his friend and determined to return with her.

Jor-El did have a solution. The girl he had used to host Kara's essence slept in a limbo like state. There was a risk to releasing her back upon Earth, but she had served his purpose, and the potential gain far outweighed the risk involved.

Lindsey Harrison deserved a chance to resume her life, though after nearly twenty years and the alterations required to her genetics for her to hold the essence, the power of a Kryptonian without causing permanent damage, would make having, leading a normal life next to impossible. Lindsey didn't deserve to be consigned to oblivion; she was very much like Kara, their personalities meshed so well, which was why she had been chosen to host Kara's essence in the first place. She was an honest girl, caught in an untenable position, much as Kara being the daughter of Zor-El put her in one. Lara loved Kara like her own, and he would have done near anything to make that a reality, but unlike his brother, he would not spill the blood of a member of the house of El; which had left Kara at her father's mercies. Of all the things he failed at, Kara was by far the most personal.

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His hand struck something. He thought it was a hand, and latched on with everything he had and pulled backward. He heaved and groaned, slowly pulled back. Every part of his body burned with the effort, every muscle felt like it was going to burst with the strain, but he refused to give up.

Time had no meaning, hours could have passed and it only felt like seconds, seconds could have stretched into hours.

Before Kyle even knew what happened he was outside the rift, in the cave. His entire body throbbed; pain pulsed through his every pore and intensified with each millimeter it descended.

Through the pain, there was the hazy awareness of somebody lying next to him. He patted her arm, tried to anyway. He wasn't sure if he actually succeeded or not. "Its okay Liz," he murmured or thought he did. It might have only been in his head. "I got you out o…" Kyle managed before darkness claimed him.

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Max stumbled back, his legs buckling underneath him. The only thing that kept him from collapsing was Michael grabbing hold of him. "What the hell?"

Isobel grabbed hold of his other arm guiding him to a chair. "My god you're burning up," she whispered.

"What happened to the no healing aspect of this plan?" Michael growled as Max settled into the chair.

Max's hand shook with the effort needed to wipe the sweat from his brow. "They weren't natural," he murmured trying to regain his composure. He felt like he'd just ran halfway to the east coast with a thousand pounds strapped to his back.

"How couldn't they be natural?" Isobel asked. She liked her world to make sense, even if it wasn't the sort of sense anybody else would see as such. "Why would somebody fake a heart problem?" Not to mention everything else in his chart.

"They weren't fake," Max answered sounding a little less harried. "More like…" He shook his head like he couldn't believe the thought in his brain.

"Like what?" Michael demanded. Patience was never his strength, and had run out of them rather quickly once Max started healing Kent. The only thing that had kept him from pulling Max off the farmer was Isobel's restraining hand.

Max caught Michael's gaze and despite his fatigued state made his voice hard as a driven beam and said, "Like somebody was exacting a price."

"Why would someone…" Isobel let the question trail off as she looked over at the still comatose Jonathan Kent. The death like pallor was gone. For the first time since entering the room he looked alive. His vitals were stronger then they had been, his breathing was better.

Michael snorted at the question before saying, "More importantly, who could do it?"

"The entity from the cave," Max answered pushing himself to his feet. He sagged a little but quickly locked his knees. He looked from his sister to his eldest friend. "I'm sorry guys, but I think we stumbled into something here. More then we bargained for."

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Lex grimaced as he slipped on his deep black shirt. He began doing up the buttons with a slow, steady place. He was sore and felt weak as a day old kitten, but it was better then the alternative. Whatever poison he ingested was so exotic that the doctors couldn't identify more then a handful of the compounds used in its creation.

He thought it would have taken more then a simple blood transfusion to save his life. His doctors agreed that it should only have bought him a few hours, at most. They were stunned, when after a few hours, he had regained consciousness. They were left speechless when his test results came back clean.

Little sister had some explaining to do.

Once he found her, if he found her.

Since he learnt of her existence two years ago during her incarceration in the Orange County Women's Maximum Security Prison he has been debating whether he should contact her or not. At the time he thought it would benefit her more if she could concentrate on her rehabilitation and not the dysfunctional family she was a member of.

She had been doing well, aside from a few fights early on, Faith was a model prisoner. That was until a visit from Wesley Wyndham-Pryce, the same man she confessed to kidnapping and torturing. With feats of superhuman prowess, smashing through unbreakable, bullet proof glass and not just surviving a four story high dive but running away from it without so much as a hitch in her step, she escaped.

After the breakout she dropped off the radar for another six months before resurfacing in England last week with her slate wiped cleaned. No record of her confession, her conviction, nothing. This Council she worked for had muscle, that they could make it disappear… It was as if they waved their hand and it all just vanished, like magic. Nobody he talked to in the California Penal System had ever heard of Faith Wells.

Before two years ago he never heard of her either, that was when a letter finally reached him, forwarded to him over two and a half years and several continents. It followed him from School in Europe to Metropolis back to Europe back to Metropolis and finally Smallville.

It was a strange letter from Richard Wilkins III, the Mayor of a small California town a few hours outside Los Angeles called Sunnydale. The man was looking to adopt a young girl, Faith Wells. Wilkins claimed Faith was his sister, and he couldn't go through with the adoption unless her family gave up all legal rights to her.

Most of the man's letter was insanity wrapped in the vanilla mask of civility. Tracking the man down had been easy, gleaning any information out of him was impossible since he died only a few weeks after sending out the letter, killed, in what the local papers were calling a tragic accident, when a gas main running under Sunnydale High ruptured and exploded during the graduation ceremony.

Wilkins death was less then a day after Faith had been stabbed and thrown off a building of unknown height. Either should have killed her. Neither did, instead she spent the next eight months in a coma. The fact she woke up at all was incredible, that she walked out of the hospital before anybody was aware of her change in condition defied explanation.

Faith had a lot of explaining.

As much explaining as he had to do. When they finally met. No where near what Lionel owed them. A soft knock on his door pulled Lex's mind from his current thoughts. He had learnt earlier in the day that when a nurse knocked it was simply perfunctorily because they never waited for him to respond before opening the door. "Come in." His voice was loud enough to be heard.

The door opened and he smiled, genuinely pleased to see the head that poked in the door. There was actual emotion in his voice when he said, "Mrs. Kent." There was so much more that he wanted to say, so much gratitude that he wanted to express only the words seemed to lodge in the back of his throat.

He hadn't expected many people to visit him, but he thought the few friends he made in Smallville would have dropped in once or twice, but none had. He knew Clark was angry with him for some perceived slight, but thought Clark would have set his feelings aside long enough to visit.

Lana flying back from Paris only hours after arriving wasn't very likely, plane tickets didn't just grow on trees, but it had been a pleasant fantasy; her rushing through the door just as he regained consciousness.

Much as he claimed otherwise Lana had carved out a special place in his heart. Something he thought was impossible after all these years, with his innate cynicism and distrust of his fellow man.

None of that had come to pass. From the little information he pumped out of the nurses he had exactly two visitors, Faith, who disappeared some time last night after the blood transfusion, and Martha Kent, the woman who was gliding effortlessly into the room.

Martha returned the smile, but it was forced, edged with a bitter tension. "You're certainly looking better." It was there, in her voice as well.

"It's good to see a friendly face Mrs. Kent." He didn't realize just how true those words were until he said them. It was good to see a friendly face, somebody he didn't have to worry about maneuvering around or watching his back for the poison dagger. Not that Martha didn't understand business or wasn't dangerous. When she worked for Lionel he found out, very quickly, it would be unwise to underestimate her.

"And it's good to see you back on your feet," she returned. It was the honest truth, but Lex couldn't help but feel he was responsible for the resentment in her voice. "It feels like forever since…" She let the sentence trail as she took in his clothes, a slight arch to her brow before she asked, "Are you sure it's a good idea for you to check out? I'm sure the doctors are going to want to run some sort of test to make sure you're alright."

Lex smirked, the barest hint of a smile; one that said they were more then welcome to try, but I'm Lex Luthor and things are going to be done my way. "Honestly Mrs. Kent, I feel fine, better then I have in ages." Fact was despite his weakness he felt oddly supercharged, exhilarated. As if the world was moving too slow for him.

A lot of explaining to do.

"The blood transfusion worked then," Martha said causing Lex to blink wondering how she could have known about that. Her next words clarified that as she continued, "Faith was positive it would."

"You've met Faith?" There was no keeping the shock out of his voice.

Martha nodded, the barest movement as she said, "Last night. She was, an intriguing young woman."

"What is it?" Lex demanded. He could hear something else in her voice something that sounded like concern.

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Mary Jane stared at the breathtaking landscape, that sped by the black '65 Spider Porsche she found herself in, without really seeing it. Her mind was too focused on Peter, on the months it has been since she last saw him and she wasn't quite sure what kind of greeting she was going to give him. It was a toss up between throwing him to the ground and have her wicked way with him or slugging him, spider powers be damned.

She brushed a handful of stray locks out of her face and sighed softly. The Oscorp leer jet had landed at a private airfield on the outskirts of town. Harry said it belonged to an associate who bounced around the prep school, private academy circuit. Lex and him, they weren't friends, but they crossed paths enough to be functionally civil.

Getting to Smallville was easy and had taken very little time, only minutes. If she wasn't so concerned about Peter, Mary Jane would have been a little more concerned about the speed that Harry was racing around at. What they had to wait around for the longest, was the crew unloading his Porsche.

It took better then thirty minutes, but Harry had been insistent. Mary Jane had suggested renting a car, but Harry had scoffed at the idea. Muttering that rental agencies wouldn't carry a black, '65 Porsche Spider.

She didn't think about it, just accepted it. If she had given it a moment's thought she would have realized the oddity. Harry never drove himself anywhere, but now he was driving like a formula one stockcar driver.

But she wasn't and she didn't.

The country side would have made the perfect Midwest picture postcard, with its endless seas of corn stalks swaying lazily in the mid summer breeze. The sort you would send back to friends and family who had never been away from the big city, had never seen such an expanse of open sky.

Harry downshifted smoothly, the Porsche slowing with a surge that caused Mary Jane to take stock of where she was. Even with the rapid deceleration they were fast approaching a dirt driveway, a simple wooden arch stood a few feet from the roadside. It was big enough to allow even large dump body pay loaders underneath. Hanging from the crossbar was a simple wood plaque that proclaimed the land beyond to be the property of the Kent's'.

"We're here?" Mary Jane murmured dreamily as Harry turned onto the dirt driveway before coming to an abrupt stop. The Porsche idling restlessly as it sat there. "We stopped," she said turning frantic eyes on Harry. "Why'd we stop?"

Harry stared at the house in the distance. It was a sturdy, solid building with a massive red barn close enough to be considered an oversized out building. A functional pickup truck was parked in the front yard, and a large tractor was around the side of the barn. "No reason," he answered after a protracted pause.

"Harry," Mary Jane began with patience she didn't feel. She wanted to find Peter, and find him now, only Harry looked like he was wrestling with a ghost, and the ghost definitely had the upper hand. Most people wouldn't have seen it, but most people didn't know Harry as well as she did, or thought she did. All they would see was the thin frown, maybe mistake it for being petulant, and maybe he was.

To most his face would have seemed carved from stone, for all the emotion in it, a particularly brittle kind of stone that would shatter if hit the right way.

He exhaled, an impatient sound. She could almost read the worry playing over his face. It was so much like a little boy who thought they were in trouble and didn't want to face their parents. Mary Jane knew the feeling, she's been avoiding her father for years now, but she didn't understand why Harry would want to avoid Peter. Harry claimed he didn't hold Peter responsible for Norman's death, said he had a fairly good idea of what happened that night, Norman actually being the psychotic super villain known as The Green Goblin.

"I'm not sure I can do this MJ," he finally said.

"You what?" She hissed. Shock and surprise were quickly replaced by annoyed anger. "You drag me all they way out here and now, you don't know."

"I'm not sure Peter even wants to see me. What, with how the two of us left things in New York?"

Mary Jane blinked at his response. It was vague beyond Harry's normal standards. She knew there had to be more to what he had to say, only he had no clue what to say.

"Why wouldn't Pete want to see you? Despite everything you're still Pete's best friend—"

Harry snorted derisively before he said, "That's not saying a hell of a lot about Pete's friends MJ."

"Harry," Mary Jane said with deliberate slowness, "what aren't you telling me?"

Looking up slightly Harry chewed on his cheek. "I almost killed him," he mumbled after a brief hesitation. "I don't know how much Peter told you about that night with Octavius, but… I was the one that set him on Peter and Spider Man. If he captured Spider Man for me, I'd give him the tritium he wanted. I held a knife over his heart, was seconds away from plunging…" He shook his head dismissively, a single, sharp movement. After a calming breath he began again. "If I hadn't pulled off his mask, If I just struck… Peter would be dead, you'd be dead. Most of New York would be a crater. God, MJ. I really screwed up."

Her temper had always been quick to flare up, much like a flash flood, and normally left her with almost as much debris to clean up once she cooled down. Right now it was smoldering and she didn't know who she was angrier with; Peter for not telling her or Harry for waiting until now to tell her.

"You son of a bitch," she growled between clenched teeth.

Her open hand slap caught Harry flat footed. The sting faded quickly, but the impression it left on his check lingered.

She forced the door open without being aware of it as she muttered on unintelligible epitaph at Harry Osborne. Harry's face colored, he hadn't been aware that Mary Jane knew that phrase, much less how to use it properly. The door slammed shut and Harry winced at what sounded like glass shattering inside the door.

"Son of a bitch," she mumbled again as she began to walk up the long driveway.

Harry quickly pulled up alongside her. "MJ, get back in the car," he pleaded with her.

"Fuck off Osborne."

"I'm sorry Mary Jane. I didn't mean for any of that to happen, didn't mean for you to get caught in the cross—"

Mary Jane whirled, hurling her purse at Harry as she shouted, "Screw you Harry."

The purse would have struck true only Harry managed to catch it. Her eyes were filled with rage, but underneath the anger was the shock of betrayal, as if part of her foundation had been stripped away in the last few minutes and he had to wonder if it was him she was furious with, or Peter.

"What the hell do you want? Want me to forgive you, fine you're forgiven. Want Peter's forgiveness?" She laughed at her own question. It was laughter hinged on hysteria. "Funny thing is, he probably forgave you right after it happened, Peter's sort of funny like that."

"Are you done MJ?" Harry asked patiently.

Her scowl didn't lesson, in fact it seemed to intensify as if she was looking for something to say, another barb to throw at him. "No," she finally answered in a huff.

When it became apparent she wasn't going to say anything else Harry began speaking. "I screwed up, I was so angry, the kind of anger that can make people see everything wrong and make it seem not only justifiable but right. My father's dead, my company was in financial ruin and at the heart of it all was Spider Man. I would've dealt with the devil himself if that was what it took. Instead, Octavius came calling."

Mary Jane wasn't sure why she got back in the car. Maybe it was as simple as she didn't want to walk up the driveway, having to navigate her way through ruts and the pits and other little obstacles meant to trip the unwary foot. Maybe it was the fact her anger was already simmering down. She was still upset, more then upset, her life had nearly ended that night. She knew she would forgive Harry if she hadn't already.

He was one of her few friends left over from high school and she wasn't about to toss him to the curb. She wasn't going to forgive him out of hand either. This was definitely a black mark in his ledger and he was going to have to work very hard to get back in her good graces.

"I'm not looking for for—"

"Don't Harry," Mary Jane warned.

Harry frowned softly but didn't say anything. What was left for him to say? He didn't want their forgiveness, not with them simply handing it to him. It needed to be earned, he needed to earn their trust again.

With something like negligence, Harry accelerated the Porsche. It surged forward with a quick leap, in only a few seconds he was pulling to a stop as close to the house as he could without driving on the lawn. He didn't feel like apologizing to anybody else.

Mary Jane glanced over at him and shook her head before she opened the door and slid out of the car. Harry exhaled softly as he pushed open his door. Mary Jane was already at the house rapping on the front door.

It was with heavy footsteps that he trudged up the walk. He shoved his hands into his pockets as he reached the stairs. "I've got a feeling," He began as he started climbing the wooden steps. "That nobody's home."

"What the hell time do people out here get up?" She grumbled looking at her watch. Seven forty-five.


End file.
